


Trouble

by BRIGHTSIDEash



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, and a lot of jealousy, basically a lot of angst, figuring out feelings, peppered with some fluff, starts the end of 3A
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-04-14 02:47:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14126451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BRIGHTSIDEash/pseuds/BRIGHTSIDEash
Summary: The first time Stiles and you kissed was after one of the many death defying adventures with the pack. So much has happened that it’s difficult to remember which crazy event it was, but those moments before you both fell into the comfort of one another are impossible to forget.-You think of all these things as you hide in the locker room, sitting on a bench in the back of the room. You’d seen Lydia pulling a panicked, breathless looking Stiles inside and had followed, full of worry. It was a panic attack, and Lydia was trying to calm him down. You hard her talking to him as you walked inside, and then you turned the corner. They’d kissed. Or rather, Lydia has kissed him, and you could see from where you were that it was different; not like when you and Stiles kissed. Your kisses with him were usually needy and urgent, but this kiss was something else entirely.





	1. Strong Connections

**Author's Note:**

> I don't normally do Character x Reader pairings, but it was a writing challenge, and I really enjoyed how it started out so I'm making it a small series. There's going to be a lot of angst, involving Stiles as he's realising he's the Nogitsune, there'll be fluff and along the way there'll probably be some smut.  
> The whole idea came based on the song Trouble, by R3hab

The first time Stiles and you kissed was after one of the many death defying adventures with the pack. So much has happened that it’s difficult to remember which crazy event it was, but those moments before you both fell into the comfort of one another are impossible to forget. You had been ranting and crying, almost shouting, at Stiles for being so reckless in some fight, trying to remind him that he’s painfully human and a lot more destructible than everyone else. He’d stood up from where he sat suddenly, to stop your frenzied pacing around his bedroom, and placed his hands firmly on your shoulders.  
“Hey Y/N, it’s okay. I’m here, you’re here. Everyone’s okay.” His interruption had blown most of the fight out of you, and you sighed loudly. Stiles gently ran his thumb across your damp cheek to rid it of the tears, and you looked up to meet his gentle hazel eyes. There’s a moment pause where you both gaze at one another, and then you’re kissing. It’s hard to tell who made the first move or if you both had moved together, but your lips met in a hard kiss. Your arms snaked around his waist, grabbing his shirt in your fists and pulling him against you. The kiss deepened as his tongue met yours, and then it was more urgent, the two of you stepping and falling back onto Stiles’ bed.  
-  
That was your first kiss with Stiles and the first makeout session, but not the first time you’d slept together. It might have been if you hadn’t been interrupted by Stiles’ phone ringing insistently, and he’d finally groaned in annoyance and answered. Feeling awkward and panicked, you had slipped out of his room and house before he’d finished the call, practically running the few blocks to your own house.  
The two of you ignored the problem, and you didn’t mention it to any of your friends. Not even when it happened again. And again. You realise now that it was a comfort, and a way to cope with all the danger and craziness of your daily lives. The two of you went to school as friends, faced dangers as part of a pack, and in the night sought one another out.  
You think of all these things as you hide in the locker room, sitting on a bench in the back of the room. You’d seen Lydia pulling a panicked, breathless looking Stiles inside and had followed, full of worry. It was a panic attack, and Lydia was trying to calm him down. You hard her talking to him as you walked inside, and then you turned the corner. They’d kissed. Or rather, Lydia has kissed him, and you could see from where you were that it was different; not like when you and Stiles kissed. Your kisses with him were usually needy and urgent, but this kiss was something else entirely.  
Holding your head in your hands, you breathe out a long, slow sigh. It’s not like you hadn’t known about his feelings for Lydia; everyone but the redheaded girl was aware of it. Nothing had changed, of course it hadn’t. You were fooling yourself to think any different. Had you really thought it was different now?  
Foolish.  
Stiles and you - you’re not a thing, not a couple. All you did was spend the nights together in secret, just a way to feel something other than the daily terror that comes with the Supernatural life.  
“Woah, hey! This is the boy’s locker room,” a voice pulls you from your misery and you snap your head up, blinking away the sting in your eyes. Stiles and Lydia had left the locker room long ago, after you’d crept away to hide in the back of the room, feeling too much like the wind had been knocked out of you to go to your class. You’re not sure how long you’ve been sat here, but pretty certain it’s long enough to miss your last class of the day.  
“Right, sorry,” you say weakly, picking your bag and rising to your feet. You feel the eyes on you all the way to the door.  
Outside you hesitate for a moment, but then turn towards the exit. There’s no point in trying to go to your last class halfway through, so instead you leave school and go home.  
It’s later that night that you receive a text, and you open it both with the usual excitement you get at seeing his name light up your screen, and a new kind of dread.  
Stiles: Can I come see you right now?  
Chewing your bottom lip with worry, you type out a refusal with an excuse of being busy but stop before hitting send. The scene from earlier comes back to mind, but this time instead of focusing on the kiss it’s Stiles panicked expression and his struggle to breath that fills your mind. His father is missing, and you know how much that’s tearing him up right now. The selfish, jealous part of you wants to tell him to go and find his comfort in Lydia, but another part doesn’t let you. The part that cares. The part that keeps you in his bed after the kissing and the sex, allowing you to indulge in falling asleep in his arms most nights.  
You send him a quick yes, and it seems like only five minutes have passed when there’s a knocking at your front door. Stiles kisses you quickly on the cheek when he walks into your house, and the small, simple action causes a fluttering in your stomach. Before today you would have thought nothing of it, but today has you second guessing every action between the two of you.  
“Is everything okay?” you ask him, wanting to know if he has news of his father, but knowing if he doesn’t the question would hurt too much.  
“No - well, yes I think. Maybe?” he tries to answer, finally shrugging and turning around to face you. He looks lost. “We think we’ve found a way to find my dad - to find all three of them.”  
“That’s great!” You say enthusiastically, the smile coming easily to your face.  
“Well that’s where the maybe comes in,” he says almost sheepishly. “Scott, Allison and I - well, we have to die.” Your stomach drops, and for a moment your heart hammers inside your chest.  
“What?” Stiles looks at your face and must see the panic, because he comes towards you, but you step away from him, the image of him kissing Lydia too clear in your head. You can see the confusion on his face to your reaction, and think you see hurt there too.  
“It’s only supposed to be for a few seconds. Deaton says he can bring us back,” Stiles pauses and pulls a face that he usually does when he has extra, not good information to add. “He says he thinks he can bring us back. I’m just on my way to my house, to get something of my dad’s that I need to take with me.”  
“So why are you here, Stiles?” you ask him, and the question comes out harsher than intended. You can see that Stiles notices, and he hesitates in his answer, a small frown creasing his features.  
“Well, it’s dangerous. I didn’t want to go without-” Stiles swallows and searches your expression, but you keep it as straight as you can to prevent the tremble in your lip and the sting of tears. “I didn’t want to go without seeing you first,” he finally admits in such a soft voice that makes you falter, and want to melt into him. He’s stepping towards you now, and his hand lays on your cheek, thumb stroking the skin there, reminding you of the seconds before your first kiss. He steps forward so that the two of you are inches apart, and you have to tilt your head back to look up into his face.  
You’re torn between wanting to kiss him, and wanting to push him away. He loves her, not you, you remind yourself. You have to be strong and end this, because it already hurts and it’s only going to get worse. You realise Stiles is leaning towards you, eyes flickering back and forth between yours, as if he were trying to read your thoughts.  
“Stiles,” you say his name in a sigh, and gently push on his chest. This time he definitely looks hurt, and you feel anger for a moment. If you hadn’t seen him with Lydia earlier that day, this moment could have easily pushed you over the edge into falling for him. A lot of moments could if you were being honest with yourself, because Stiles was so gentle and caring. So **romantic.** Behind the closed doors of your bedroom where the rest of your friends don’t see you, the two of you act as if he’s your boyfriend, and in those moments it was so easy to forget the outside world.  
“What’s going on, Y/N?”  
Can you lay this all out now? Despite your anger and your hurt, you know that Stiles is already dealing with a lot considering the kidnapping of his dad, the kidnapping of his friends parents, and now he’s about to run off and do something else extremely dangerous. Could you let him go without telling him the reason you’re pushing him away? Let him think you just don’t care enough?  
“I saw you today with Lydia,” you finally say, and Stiles frowns in confusion as he tries to figure out what you’re talking about. You can practically see the lightbulb flash above his head as his face falls when he realises. The locker room. The kiss.  
“Y-you were there?” he asks you weakly, and you nod.  
Silence. Finally you break it with a sigh.  
“Look, I know I have no right to be upset, or angry, or anything really. We’re not a couple, we’re just - well, friends with benefits, I guess. I knew about your feelings for Lydia when we started this,” you wave a hand between the two of you to reference your suddenly very complicated non relationship. "I feel so stupid for even bring upset about this, because I’m not your girlfriend! But-“ you stop and take a deep, shaky breath in an attempt to pull your feelings in check.  
"But you are upset,” Stiles finishes for you, and you nod your head sadly.  
“You can’t help how you feel about her, but a part of me really wishes it was me you felt that way for,” you confess to him, and look over to meet his gaze. Stiles’ expression softens and he looks at you almost sadly.  
“Oh Y/N,” Stiles looks as if he’s about to say something but is cut off by his phone. Stiles pulls it out and checks the screen, a frown settling on his face. “I’m sorry, it’s Scott,” he mumbles, and you nod to say it’s okay for him to answer.  
They need to him to hurry up, they’re running out of time to perform the ritual and Stiles’ spills over himself in apologising to you, but he has to go now. It’s to save his dad, and you tell him that you understand. He says you’ll continue this conversation later, but you point out he’s about to die, so will there even be a later?  
You almost let him leave, but once he’s outside walking to his jeep, you run out after him.  
“I’m coming with you,” you tell him firmly, and he doesn’t try to argue with you. A small smile lightens his face, and he nods his head.  
-  
“It’s not just someone to hold you under, but someone who can pull you back. It needs to be someone who has a strong connection to you.” Deaton is explaining to the three how they’re going to die, and the need for someone to hold them down under freezing cold water. Deaton has proven time and again that he knows a lot more than anyone else in the room, but you can’t help to doubt his plan. You’re standing behind Stiles and Scott, here as an observer and emotional support for your friends, who had all been pleased to see you in tow with Stiles.  
Lydia begins moving towards Allison, but is interrupted.  
“Lydia, you go with Stiles.” _Strong connection._ It’s like a punch to the gut all over again, and Stiles glances back at you with an unreadable expression on his face. You force a smile onto your lips, but even you know it’s weak. The room is thick with tension and awkwardness when Allison realises she’s to be with Isaac.  
You have to stand back and watch, but can’t stop yourself from moving forward to stand at the end of the tub that Stiles forces himself into. He settles into the ice water, already starting to shiver, and turns to tell Scott about his father. Finally, he looks up to meet your eyes, his hand on the edge of the tub reaching out to you. Without thinking you step forward and lay your hand over his, intertwining your fingers. You know that everyone is watching, exchanging confused looks but you don’t have the energy to care about anything but the boy who holds your gaze. There’s an awful twisting in the pit of your stomach when you think about the possibility of Stiles’ beautiful eyes not opening again, or never having the chance to kiss his soft lips. In the few seconds of silence you make an effort to memorise his face; the eyes that you could look into all night with the long lashes that soften his expression, the cheeks dotted with moles and often pink in colour when you both roll around your beds together, the soft lips you enjoy kissing, enjoy having over any part of your body.  
“You better come back,” you whisper, and he laughs in response, causing a smile to stretch your lips.  
“Y/N, we have to do this now.” Deaton says and you nod your head, not looking away from Stiles’ face. You squeeze his fingers between yours, and he does the same back before you let go and move backwards, forcing yourself away.  
It’s awful to watch Lydia push him down under the water and keep him there. You put your hand over your mouth to stifle the sob that rises as you watch Stiles die right in front of you.  
In that moment when the water becomes still, you decide that you don’t care if he’s in love with the girl standing above him and not you. You’ll continue to be his night time whatever in secret, just as long as he comes back to the surface.


	2. Awakening

The minutes tick by agonisingly slowly. You pull up a chair to sit at the end of Stiles’ tub, staring down at where he lies beneath the clear, still water. You stare at the surface of the water searching for any signs of an air bubble until your eyes sting, and you’re forced to blink. The others move about the room, talking, debating, watching.   
Stiles had told you seconds. They would have to die for seconds, and then Deaton could bring them back. That wasn’t happening, and there was a nauseating discomfort settling in your stomach. Anxiety and panic. 

“Why haven’t they come back yet?” you snap your head up to where Deaton is arranging some jars of unknown substances, your tone almost accusing.   
“The process isn’t always quick,” he tries to explain to you. “I had hoped it would just take a few seconds in our time, or minutes. Their search is proving to be more difficult.” He doesn’t even look up at you, and so you go back to looking at Stiles’ face, slightly warped under the water. 

 

An hour. Then another thirty minutes. The anxious twisting of your stomach worsens, until it feels like something is trying to crawl its way out of you from the inside.   
“It’s been too long,” you say as you pace around the room, around the three tubs. “We need to pull them out!” You look around the three awake people in the room, noticing the look that Isaac and Lydia exchange, and then they turn their heads to Deaton for his guidance.   
“We don’t know what effect pulling them out would have,” he says, his glance moving between us all. “It could do more harm to them than good. We’re dealing with some very powerful forces here, and must trust that they’ll find their way through.”  
“Does everything you say have to sound like some sort of Chinese proverb?” you snap at him, causing Isaac to snort in laughter, covering his mouth with his hand to try and hide it. “What if they don’t? What if we have the chance to save them by pulling them out, but you’ve made us wait too long? We should be doing CPR on them!”  
“Y/N, I promise-” Deaton begins to say, but you’re too agitated to listen to him, your insides too knotted in worry about your friends, about Stiles. He looks so lifeless, and it’s awful. How could he possibly survive being dead this long? You know the basics of human anatomy, and you know that his brain needs oxygen for him to be him.   
“Their hearts can’t last this long without beating! Or their brains! What if they’re brain dead?” now your tone is definitely accusing, and it’s all directed at the veterinarian/wizard/human encyclopedia on all matters supernatural.   
“That’s why they’re in the ice water,” he continues with a calmness that is infuriating.   
Deaton continues trying to explain to you, and you continue to argue erratically with him, until Isaac convinces you to go into the next room with him, to calm down.  
“Maybe you should go home and try to get some sleep?” Lydia suggests as you walk towards the door with Isaac. “We’ll call you as soon as anything happens.”  
“I’m not leaving him,” you snap at her furiously, feeling bad almost immediately after because you know she’s trying to be nice. Trying to be a friend. You shouldn’t take it out on her but when you look at her you can see her lips on Stiles’ and it still stings. The jealousy you feel is like a snake, coiled, ready to strike.   
She doesn’t even know what she’s done wrong, because none of them know about you and Stiles. 

Being in a different room has you almost immediately feeling more calm, where you can’t see the three tubs and Stiles lying beneath the surface, un-moving. With a heavy sigh, you lower yourself into a seat in the vet’s waiting room, and a moment later Isaac lowers himself into the one next to you. There’s a small moment of silence.   
“So,” Isaac draws out the single word, then turns his head to look at you, a smirk on his lips. “You and Stiles?” Your stomach somersaults, and you wonder what it means for one of your friends to know. Does it change things? Will everyone know now? Would you care? Would Stiles?   
“So you and Allison?” you quip back with an inquisitive arch of your eyebrow. Isaac laughs and shrugs, turning to look at the doorway to the next room, and you know he’s thinking of Allison laying in the same condition as Stiles.   
“It’s- well, I don’t even know if it’s a thing,” Isaac answers helplessly.   
“It’s complicated,” you sigh, “yeah I get that.”   
“How complicated?” he asks, turning to you again and you know he’s referring to your thing with Stiles.   
“Complicated enough that it’s not really a relationship, nobody knows about it except us, and now you. Complicated enough that it hurt when Deaton said Lydia is his strong connection.” Out of all the friends you had, you had never really imagined it would be Isaac that you would open up to. The two of you had never really been close, only hanging out when the whole pack was together, but then you weren’t sure Isaac was especially close to anyone in the pack. Apart from Allison, apparently. You remember that he also lives at Scott’s house, and wonder about the awkward situation he’d be in now. Maybe yours wasn’t the most complicated non relationship right now.  
“Do you love him?” Isaac asks, and the question makes you break out in a cold sweat.   
“I like him a lot,” you choose your words carefully. “We’re not even dating, and what we have been doing has only been going on a couple months. It started out as just some fun, we were hooking up now and then, usually after something bad happens. Now-” you pause, wondering how to explain the tangled feelings that makes up your relationship with Stiles. “Now we hardly ever spend a night apart,” you finish quietly. Isaac is watching you intently as you talk, and when he realises you’re not going to say anything else coughs awkwardly, shifting in his seat.   
“Well, at least you don’t have to worry about your Alpha punching you in the face if you admit your feelings for him,” he sighs, sounding almost bitter. You respond with a hollow laugh.   
“No, I just have to deal with the fact that he is and has always been in love with a flawless looking redhead, and he’d drop me at the smallest hint that she likes him back.” You definitely sound bitter, and finally turn your head to look at Isaac. He smiles awkwardly and pats your arm sympathetically, the two of you falling into a comfortable silence.   
Hours go by. Literally hours. At some point your eyes grow too heavy, and you fall asleep in the chair beside Isaac.   
“Hey Y/N, wake up,” Isaac’s gentle voice pulls you up from your slumber, and for a moment you don’t move as you get your bearings, remembering where you are. Once you do, you snap your eyes open and jump up, startling Isaac and making him fall back.   
“What’s going on? Are they awake?” you demand, but see it in the expression on his face. He shakes his head, and you relax back into the chair, but a tightness in your back and neck make you flinch. The chair was a bad place to fall asleep.   
“I’m going out to grab coffees, do you want to come with?” Isaac asks you, making you realise that light is flooding through the windows. The whole night had passed, and your three friends are still under the water.   
“I can’t leave,” you decide, and Isaac nods his head in understanding, asking instead what you want to drink. Once he leaves the building you wander back into the other room, where Lydia and Deaton are still sat, talking gently and constantly looking over at the three tubs. You wonder if they’ve moved at all throughout the night.   
“Hey Y/N, how are you feeling?” Lydia asks you with a smile, and you force a smile onto your own face. When you look at her face, you have to wrestle with the jealousy, anger and guilt writhing around in your mind. You can’t help the jealousy, knowing she could easily take Stiles from you without any effort, but she doesn’t deserve your anger. You know that if she knew about your whole thing with Stiles, she definitely would not have kissed him the day before.   
It had just been to help him through a panic attack, you tell yourself. Lydia doesn’t even like Stiles. Does she? You realise that perhaps the most maddening thing is not knowing for sure if Lydia isn’t interested in the boy you kiss at night, the boy you fall asleep next to most nights of the week, the boy you think about a lot these days.   
“Y/N?” her voice pulls you from the distracting thoughts, and you realise she’s looking at you expectantly as you hadn’t responded to her question.   
“Sorry yes, I’m fine. A bit groggy from waking up, and I definitely slept in an awkward position,” you ramble in an effort to cover your thoughts, stretching out your back to try and work out the kink in your muscles. Lydia nods, seemingly satisfied with your answer. Her eyes flick across the room to where your friends lay, and she turns back to you with a question in her eyes, but hesitates and closes her mouth instead. You wonder what she had been thinking.   
“Six hours until the full moon,” Deaton murmurs, pulling your attention to him instead. He looks concerned, almost uncertain. Is he doubting his own plan? The idea brings back your anxiety with full force, causing a twisting in your stomach that stops you from being able to drink the delicious smelling coffee that Isaac brings back for you all.   
-  
Allison is the first to jump up and gasp for air, frightening the life out of you. Before you even have a chance to worry, Stiles comes up for air, followed by Scott. Everyone jumps up to look at them, Isaac barreling into the room behind you. You both breathe a sigh of relief, and he puts a warm, comforting hand on your shoulder; you look back at him and share a smile at the relief in you both.   
All three of them share their experience, and finally end with Scott exclaiming that he can find the Nemeton. None of you answer immediately, waiting awkwardly for one of you to break the news. They had thought they’d only be under for seconds, maybe minutes. You have no idea how long it had been for them in their search. They all quickly pick up on the atmosphere and it’s Allison who asks what is wrong.   
“You guys were out a long time," Isaac speaks up first. You’re too busy looking at Stiles to answer them. He looks alright, definitely alive. He’s soaked through from the water, his clothes clinging to his lean body that you’re definitely not thinking about. You can see him shivering from the ice, goosebumps raised on his arms.   
"How long’s a long time?” Stiles asks and his eyes find yours. His voice filling your head seems to be what hits you, makes you realise that he’s really okay. Your knees almost crumble beneath you, and you can feel the tears that threaten to spill. You turn and leave the room, not wanting to break down into a mess in front of everyone and have to try to explain the overwhelming emotions. Isaac says your name gently as you leave, but you don’t answer. You can hear them still talking when you stop in the waiting room, placing your hands on the arms of the chair you slept in and leaning forward, breathing slow, deep breaths to calm yourself.   
You’re being ridiculous, you tell yourself. Everyone is fine, and this is no way to react. You should be in there with them talking and planning, but instead you’re here on your own, feeling on the verge of an anxiety attack.   
“Y/N?” his voice comes from almost right behind you, and there’s definitely worry there. You don’t answer him at first, still trying to reel in all your emotions and stop the shaking of your hands. His hand rests on your shoulder, and despite the cold in his skin, his touch warms you. “Look at me, what’s wrong?”   
Finally you rise and turn to Stiles, and the breath catches in your throat. His hair is a mess and dripping water, his skin is pale from the cold but his honey eyes are as warm as ever and full of concern. The shaking in your hands continue, and there’s sweat running down your back even though it’s not warm in the room. Signs that you’re about to fall into a full blown anxiety attack, and everyone is going to think you’re over dramatic. Why are you even having one? Stiles is fine, standing right here in front of you.   
“I thought you were dead,” you finally say and your voice cracks, a sob escaping your lips.   
Stiles sighs and pulls you towards him, enclosing you in a tight hug. You bury your face into his wet, very cold shirt and breathe him in. His hand rubs your back soothingly, and he kisses you on top of your head. Your hands stop shaking.  
“I’m sorry Y/N,” Stiles murmurs into your hair, and for a second you wonder if he’s apologising for this, or something else. The two of you stay like that for a few moments until Stiles pulls back just enough to look into your eyes, his hand coming up to rest on your cheek, thumb softly stroking your cheek. Your hands come up to rest on each side of his face, finding comfort in the feel of his skin beneath your fingers. Gently, you pull his face towards yours and your lips crash together, your eyes fluttering closed. It’s a soft and tender kiss, different from the many frantic kisses the two of you had shared before. Butterflies explode in your stomach at the gentleness of the kiss, the way he pulls you close to him, and the fact that you can tell he’s holding his breath.   
“Hey Stiles you should-” the voice of Scott tears through the tender moment between you and Stiles, and the two of you jump apart as if the touch had burned you both. You look up at Scott, who is holding out a towel towards Stiles, staring at you both in open mouthed confusion.   
“Right, thanks Scott,” Stiles says with an underlying tone of sarcasm, jumping forward to grab the towel from his best friend. Scott doesn’t move, his head flicking back from Stiles to you, and back again. It’s almost comical.   
“What?” he finally speaks. “You two-?” he seems unable to finish a sentence, and you wonder if the idea of Stiles and you is really that surprising.   
“Thanks for the towel, Scott,” Stiles puts emphasis on the boy’s name, and it works in finally pulling Scott out of his amazement and likely the million questions forming in his mind. You just stand there awkwardly, folding your arms across your chest where your shirt is wet from the contact with Stiles. “We’ll be back in a minute,” Stiles tells him, and Scott nods his head, raising his eyebrows at Stiles. It seems a lot like an expression that says we’re definitely talking about this later. Scott leaves them alone again, and Stiles turn back to you with a shy smile, rubbing the towel across his wet hair.   
“We should uh, get back to the planning,” Stiles says and you nod your head in response.   
“Yes, definitely,” you say but don’t move, and there’s an awkward pause where you both look at each other, the kiss still on your minds. Stiles flicks his tongue across his bottom lip, and the small gesture sparks something a little more than tenderness inside you.   
You finally move forward, telling yourself that you’re taking a step towards the door. Stiles moves too, but he’s going in the wrong direction and you end up standing inches apart again. Something has shifted between you both, you realise. His fingers reach out subtly, grabbing onto yours as if he can’t bear to be this close to you without touching you in some small way. You feel the same. You’ve never been this way with each other in public before, and the sudden change has you confused. From the slight crease in his brow as Stiles searches your eyes, you think he’s feeling the same confusion.   
“We really should go back,” you whisper, and he’s nodding his head in agreement but moving in to kiss you again.   
“Guys, come on!” Scott’s shout pulls you apart again, and you sigh in frustration. When your gaze meets Stiles again, the two of you laugh at how silly you’re being. He turns away and pulls you along with him, his fingers still entwined with yours.   
“Come on, let’s figure out how to save the day.”


	3. A Storm

The mood becomes frantic as a plan is set in motion to save the parents of Stiles, Scott and Allison, especially after the arrival of Ethan coming to ask for help to stop Derek from getting killed.  
“Stiles, you need to get something of your dad’s that we can use to track his scent,” Scott is directing the pack, and you’re all listening intently, waiting for his instructions. “Allison, we need to get something of your dad’s too.” Allison nods and says she needs to pick up some weapons anyway, just in case.   
“I’m going with Ethan,” Lydia says in a tone that suggests there won’t be an argument. Nobody tries.   
Everyone starts moving suddenly, and you realise that you don’t know who you’re supposed to go with, or if you’re supposed to go anywhere at all. The downfall to being human, you suppose, is that you’re not necessarily needed during times like this.   
“Hey Y/N, you coming? I’ll drop you off at your house on the way to mine.” You look up into the face of Stiles.   
“I’m staying with you,” you reply without hesitation, pushing forward towards the exit. Stiles grabs your arm to pull you back so that you look at him. In the corner of your vision you can see Scott pretending not to notice.   
“I don’t think that’s a good idea Y/N. We don’t know what’s going to happen tonight and Miss Blake is strong. It’s going to be dangerous.” His face is full of concern as he looks down at you, and knowing that it’s concern for you make you melt a little. He seems to be having that effect on you a lot lately.   
“That’s exactly why I’m coming with you Stiles,” you tell him with an amused expression. “Somebody has to keep an eye on you.”  
It’s easy to see in his face that he wants to argue with you, make you go home and stay out of the fight but he sighs and rubs a hand over the back of his hand. Muttering something about talking about it in the car, Stiles heads towards the door and you follow behind, clambering into the passenger side of his jeep.   
The ride to Stiles’ house is mostly silent, although you can sense him looking over at you a lot without saying anything. You want to talk to him about everything that’s been going on in your mind, but don’t think during his race to save his father is the best time. Instead you wonder how everything had switched so suddenly in just one day; just the day before yesterday the two of you had been comfortable around each other as great friends when out in public. Now you don’t even know how to sit next to him in his jeep, wondering if it’s acceptable to reach over and take his hand in yours. Before today, the thought of casually holding his hand wouldn’t have even occurred to you. You don’t dare look over at him to meet his darting glances every few minutes. You want to bring up your latest kiss that seemed to have tipped your whole relationship into a new stage that you weren’t sure how to handle. Did Stiles feel it too? Surely he must? The way he had looked at you during those moments had nearly bowled you over, it had been so tender. The way he had said your name the night before after confessing you wanted him to feel for you had you questioning what was left unsaid.   
“Stiles,” you say his name, unsure what you’re going to say next. That kiss was nice? I like you a lot more than I had ever intended and I need you to decide right this second if we can possibly be a thing? These thoughts and questions flutter through your mind, but are disrupted when you recognise the street you’re driving down. “Stiles, this isn’t the way to your house,” you snap your head around to look at him accusingly. He doesn’t look back but stares straight at the road ahead, chewing on his lower lip.   
The jeep rolls to a stop outside your house, Stiles turns his key to kill the engine and puts his hand on the steering wheel with a sigh. Stubbornly you fold your arms across your chest and sit back in the seat to make a show of not leaving, which causes Stiles to make a noise of exasperation.   
“Y/N, please. I’m worried that tonight is going to be bad, and I don’t want you mixed up in it.” He looks at you finally, pleading you to comply with his expression.   
“You telling me how bad it’s going to be absolutely does not make me want to get out of this jeep and let you go driving straight off into the danger Stiles,” you point out to him, and he pulls one of his over dramatic faces to suggest you’re driving him insane. “We have a lot to talk about, and I’m going along to make sure you’re here later to talk about them. So start the car.” This makes Stiles hesitate, and he’s staring at you now as if he could pull the thoughts from your mind with just his gaze. “Stiles please don’t make me sit at home on my own worrying about you all night,” you plead with him, and the boy looks at you for a moment. Without another word he starts the engine again and drives back up the street, towards his own house.   
He makes you wait out in the jeep while he runs into the house to find something his dad had recently worn, already pulling out his phone to call Scott to check on the others and probably double check what to pick. He returns with a handful of socks, dropping them into the back of the jeep and thankfully not your lap. You raise a questioning eyebrow at him and he pulls an I know face.   
“My dad’s pretty good at doing laundry quickly, and Scott was refusing to smell his boxers.”  
-  
It’s dark outside by the time you guys are on the road towards the woods, and there’s a nervous tension in the jeep between you.   
“Okay, if we come across Miss Blake you have to promise me you’ll stay back out of her way,” Stiles is saying, looking over at you for a few seconds before turning his attention back to the road.   
“And what about you? In case you’ve forgotten you’re also pretty human Stiles. How are you going to fight a Darach?”  
“Well that’s why I always have this,” Stiles reaches to the back seat and pulls forward a metal bat to show you. You look at it doubtfully, wondering if he’s being serious.   
“Can I get one?” you ask him with a smirk, and he looks at you like you’ve just grown a few extra heads.   
“What? No!”  
“Why not? I might need one in the near future considering the amount of danger that seems to follow us all about.”  
“You are not going to be in a situation where you need a bat. You are going to avoid those situations.”   
“Hey I’m part of the pack. When you guys are all running into danger I’ll be there too.”   
“Damn it Y/N,” Stiles groans, and despite the annoyance in his voice you think about how much you enjoy hearing your name on his lips. His soft, pink lips. You realise you’re staring and mentally scold yourself, wondering what has gotten into you. “Please can you just try to avoid the dangerous situations and fights?”  
“Do you ask the others to stay away from them?” you demand. “Do you ask Lydia?” the name slips out before you can really think about what you’re saying, and once the words are spoken her name hangs between the two of you.   
“It’s different,” Stiles says quietly, shifting in his seat and twisting his hands over the steering wheel. Your stomach knots as you wonder if his words have more meaning than just the fighting, or if he means his feelings. Maybe you’re just overthinking and driving yourself insane. “Lydia is a banshee, she’s drawn to this stuff so that it’s almost impossible for her to stay away. You are very much human and have the choice to stay away from this stuff, from nearly dying every other day.”  
“Not when it involves my friends and my-” you stumble over your own words as you catch herself almost calling him something that would definitely change the atmosphere. Stiles almost snaps his neck turning to look at you, but is forced to turn away again to keep driving. “You,” you finish instead, avoiding looking at his side of the jeep.   
Stiles is saved from answering by a loud rolling of thunder, which makes you look up at the sky above you. Dark, scary looking clouds roll in over the sky, too fast to be natural and the whole world flashes a bright white with lightning.   
“Uh Stiles…” you say his name nervously, and when you look at him his hands are gripping the wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles white, his lips pursed in concentration. He’s noticed, then.   
It worsens the further along Stiles drives, and the wind is whipping so hard by the time you reach the woods that it’s hard to see anything that’s ahead. Stiles is starting to swerve the jeep a little as he tries to maneuver through the sudden storm, and you grip onto whatever part of the vehicle that your hands find. A branch hits the windscreen that startles you both, and you look at Stiles, who is glancing back at where the branch drags along his side of the vehicle. You look back ahead and scream his name, which makes him turn back to the front also. He tries to slam on the brakes and throws a hand out in front of you to steady you, but it’s too late. The jeep crashes into the tree and everything goes black.   
-  
Slowly you pull back from the dregs of unconsciousness, and the first thing you notice is pain. There’s a sore, throbbing pain in your forehead, and small searing pains across your face and arms. You don’t understand why it hurts at first, and slowly open your eyes, blinking away the fog in your mind. A frown folds over your face as you take in the scene around you, not at all where you expect to be when you wake.   
The jeep, you realise. You’re in Stiles’ jeep but the front window is smashed on the side you’re sitting, a branch reaching into the vehicle pointing right at your shoulder. You can see smoke billowing from the front of the jeep and the thick tree that caused the problems. The events start coming back to you and look to your left in a panic, seeing Stiles slumped against his door, his forehead dark and wet with his blood.   
“Stiles!” you call his name, shifting in your seat to move closer to him. “Stiles please,” you cry, reaching your hand out to his neck where you’re pretty certain his pulse should be. You hold your fingers there and feel the beating beneath your fingers. Alive. You shake his shoulder gently, unsure how hurt he is. A blinding, searing pain pulses in your stomach and you cry out in pain, holding a hand to where the pain is coming from. There’s something sticking out of your skin, and you have to breathe a few deep breaths before you can manage to look down. A big shard of glass has pierced your stomach and sticks out of you tauntingly. You whimper as you take hold of it with shaking hands, bracing yourself for a moment as you find the courage to pull it out. You try to do it quietly, but the pain is so sharp and intense that you can’t help screaming in pain. Finally it’s out though, and you drop it to the floor of the jeep, looking around for something to press onto the wound.   
Stiles mumbles something that you don’t quite hear, and when you look at him can see him stirring from his own unconsciousness. Quickly you zip up the front of your jacket to cover the wound before Stiles opens his eyes.   
“Oh my god Y/N, are you okay?” Stiles is asking, leaning over to you and putting his hands on your face to turn you to him. “Oh my god!” he repeats when he clocks the branch that could have so easily impaled you. His eyes turn to you and when he looks at you there’s an agony there, which you think has to do with the small pain dotted across your cheeks and forehead. The shattered glass must have cut your face, but there’s only one wound that’s bad and you’re doing your best to hide it from him.   
Stiles pulls your body into his, wrapping his arms around you and you groan in pain, grinding your teeth together to stop from showing just how bad it is.   
“I’m sorry, are you hurt? Where?” Stiles makes a show of starting to check you over and you grab his hands in yours, pulling his attention back to your face.   
“I’ll be okay, but you need to go and find your dad Stiles. That storm wasn’t a coincidence.”  
“You’re right, let’s go,” he says, lacing his fingers with yours to pull you out of the jeep with him.   
“Wait! I can’t Stiles, I’ll have to wait here. You go on and find him.”  
“Are you crazy? I’m not leaving you here Y/N,” again he gives you a look as if you’d grown new limbs right in front of him, or rather said something he considered to be incredibly stupid.   
“My legs,” you blurt out. “I hurt my legs, or rather my leg. I’m only going to slow you down, you can come back and get me.”   
He starts to argue again and you put your hands on his face to get his full attention, and pull his lips to yours for a kiss to shut him up.   
“Stiles it’s okay, I’ll be okay here. I won’t even move so you know where I am. You need to go and save your dad before it’s too late. Please, just go.”   
Stiles hesitates and you can see him battling with himself, not wanting to leave you but knowing if he doesn’t leave he could lose his father. There’s a deep frown on his face as he realises that he has to go, and in his frustration he bangs his fist against the steering wheel.   
“It’s okay,” you reassure him but there’s a part of you that wants him to stay. A very selfish part that wants him to refuse to leave your side, even though you know that he has to go because three people could die if he doesn’t. You could show him how badly you’re hurt and you know he would absolutely not leave you, but you can’t bring yourself to do it.   
Stiles leans in and kisses you hard, his hand on the back of your head to keep you close, and you grab his shirt in your fist to pull him to you, needing him so suddenly. When he pulls away reluctantly you feel yourself aching for him. Grabbing his bat from the back seat, Stiles plants a soft kiss to your forehead and murmurs into your skin, “I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay?”   
You nod your head and watch him leave you, his actions looking unsure. He glances back at the jeep and you before disappearing into the trees, too focused on the task of finding his dad and the others to notice the dark spot of blood on the front of his shirt from where he had leaned against you.   
You ball up your jacket and press it down to your stomach where blood is still spilling from the cut, your hands beginning to shake from the effort. You pray for Stiles to be back soon as you sit in his broken jeep, trying to hold yourself together.

-

You don’t know how long it’s been, but still he’s not back. There’s no noise around you, no storm that had caused the crash, just a light wind whistling through the trees. Your grip on your jacket starts to loosen, and it’s getting harder to keep awake. Suddenly everything is bright, the world lit in an orange glow that makes you remember the lunar moon and you wonder where all your friends are right now, stuck without their wolf powers. You wonder where Stiles is.   
You find yourself saying his name as the light starts to fade again, plunging you in darkness. 

-

There’s a breath of relief when the storm completely falls away, Stiles holding tightly onto his dad, unable to believe how close he had been to missing his chance to save them. Despite the relaxed attitude and his joking phone call to Scott to save them, Stiles still can’t help worrying about Y/N. He’s been crouched here trying to figure it out, how she had hurt her legs in the crash. If she had hit them against the dash, then wouldn’t the branch that crashed through the car also have crashed through her? Her legs hadn’t been crushed because she’d managed to move across in the seat towards him.   
Melissa’s gasp pulls him back to the present and he snaps his head up to see if she’s hurt, but it’s him that she’s staring at with wide eyes. In the tight space that they’ve got, she maneuvers herself closer to him.   
“Stiles oh my god, why didn’t you say you were that hurt?” she’s asking him.   
“What?” his father demands, pulling his son around to get a better look at what Melissa is talking about.   
“What? My head? It isn’t that bad.” Stiles frowns in his confusion, pressing his fingers lightly to the cut on his head that’s still wet with his blood.   
“Your stomach Stiles, let me see,” his best friend’s mother demands and Stiles looks down to see what she’s talking about. That’s when he notices the blood blooming across his shirt, and his stomach drops, heart hammering against his chest.   
“Oh my god,” he whispers, and his dad and Melissa are trying to lift up the shirt to see a wound that doesn’t exist. He bats away their hands and scrambles towards the hole he had jumped down into, panic settling deep within his stomach. The others are saying his name, trying to get him to talk, but the blood is pounding in his ears as her face floods his mind.   
“It’s not my blood,” he says loudly to shut them up, finally turning to look at them with tears pooling the bottom of his eyes. “It’s Y/N’s. I need to get out of here, get back to her. Oh god.”   
“Stiles,” Melissa says his name in her calming voice that requires the attention of those she’s speaking to. Her nurse voice. “Stiles, that is a lot of blood. If Y/N was bleeding that much before you got here, then she needs to be at the hospital right now.”  
“I didn’t know,” Stiles cries, looking at them with a pleading expression in the hopes of them understanding. “Why didn’t she tell me she was hurt? I never would have left her.”  
“That’s probably why,” Isaac speaks softly, and his expression is full of sympathy when he looks at Stiles. Stiles can’t stand it, can’t stand the implication. She’s fine. Maybe she called an ambulance right after he left her.   
It feels like an eternity stuck in that cellar, waiting for Scott to get them out. It feels like there are balloon animals being made out of Stiles’ stomach, and his cheeks are stained with tears that he tries to fight.   
Scott arrives finally with a big smile, but when he sees Stiles’ face, the other boy’s face falls, too. He’s asking Stiles what happened, what’s wrong, but he barely hears him. As soon as his feet are on the ground Stiles is running, faster than he’s ever run when faced with danger or lacrosse practice. His mind is racing even more than his feet, memories of you flooding him, worries about what he’s going to find when he’s back at the jeep. Scott is calling his name, and so are the others but he doesn’t stop to explain.   
Before he gets to the crash, Isaac and Scott catch up to him and are running at his side, Isaac with his phone in his hand.   
In the early morning light the crash looks even worse, the front of his jeep dented and smoking, but right now he can’t even think about the repairs. Yanking open the door, his breath catches in his throat and then he’s sobbing once more. Her eyes are closed, her skin pale and right now he can’t tell if her chest is rising.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a couple more chapter already written out for this series, so if this gets a little attention I'll post the next chapter tomorrow. (Honestly like one kudos or comment is enough to get me excited to post lol)


	4. Healing

The first thing you’re aware of as you slowly drag yourself out of the darkness is a steady beeping. Your eyes are heavy and it takes a lot of effort to slowly open them, but your surroundings don’t make sense. You’re not in your own bed, or even in Stiles’. Blinking rapidly, the events start coming back to you and you gasp, remembering the storm, Stiles’ jeep, the tree, glass. You try to sit up in what you now recognise as a hospital bed, but a sharp pain in your stomach throws you back down in the bed with a cry of agony.  
“Wha- huh-” the voice in the corner of your room startles you and you turn to see a body folded uncomfortably in an armchair next to your bed. Stiles swipes a hand across his eyes and pulls himself up, eyes widening when he sees you looking back at him.  
“Y/N oh my god, you’re awake!” Stiles scrambles over to your bed, looking you up and down, his hand closing over yours.  
His hand is clammy and you can feel it trembling. When you look up into his face you can see the dark circles under his hazel eyes that don’t look as bright as you’re used to looking into, and his hair hangs down unwashed.  
“How do you look worse than me when I’m the one in the hospital bed?” you ask with a pained laugh, and he chuckles in response. “Really Stiles,” you say more seriously. “Are you okay?”  
“Am I-?” Stiles chokes, lifting his hand to rub the back of his neck, looking at you incredulously. “I thought I lost you Y/N. God, why didn’t you tell me you were bleeding from a massive hole in your stomach?” Stiles is asking as he paces up and down the side of your bed. “Bleeding profusely!” he adds, waving his hands dramatically for emphasis.  
You open your mouth to speak and find your tongue sticking to the top of your mouth, and your lips feel cracked.  
“Can I have water?” you croak. Stiles narrows his eyes at you, and for a moment you think he’s going to demand an answer first. With a sigh, Stiles wanders around your bed and pours a glass of water from a pitcher on the side table. After following his movements you can see a vase of flowers, a stuffed bear and some cards on the table with bright ‘Get Well’ messages on the front. You wonder who they’re from but are distracted by the glass of water being held out to you.  
“I need to sit up,” you look up at Stiles and he blinks, looking back at you blankly, but then jumps into action.  
“Right, yeah. Here,” putting the glass down, Stiles stands over you and snakes an arm under your shoulders, helping you as you push yourself up into a sitting position. Passing the glass to you again, he stays standing next to you, watching you drink and looking expectant.  
“Why?” he demands, unable to keep silent for too long. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?” his voice is quieter this time, and he sounds hurt by your silence back in his jeep.  
“You needed to go to your dad, and you wouldn’t have if you knew Stiles.”  
Stiles opens his mouth to speak, but closes it again and purses his lips, frowning down at you. You raise an eyebrow at him, daring him to say that you’re wrong. His face goes through an array of emotions right before you, probably going through all the arguments in his head, until finally he sighs and his whole body seems to sag, the fight leaving him. He returns to the armchair, pulling it closer to your bed. You can’t take your eyes away from his face, worrying about the pale skin that make the moles dotting his cheeks stand out even more. You think about his dad and for a moment you panic, thinking how he looks is because of grief.  
“Stiles, is your dad - did you make it?” you swallow the lump in your throat, afraid of the answer but Stiles just waves a hand to dismiss the question, telling you that he and the others all made it out fine. Breathing a sigh of relief, you relax back into the bed, shifting yourself as much as you can without causing a shooting pain through your body.  
“You could have died Y/N, you nearly did. God, when I found you-” Stiles breaks off, squeezing his eyes closed, remembering that moment.  
“Hey,” you whisper, reaching out to take his hand in yours. “It’s okay. I’m here, you’re here. Everyone’s okay,” you repeat the words he had spoken to you right before your first kiss, and can see in the smile twitching at the corner of his lips that he recognises the words.  
“Hey where’s my mum?” you ask him, looking about your hospital room for any sign that she’d been there. At the mention of her Stiles’ eyes go wide and he suddenly jumps up from the chair, a panicked expression settling on his face.  
“Oh god she’s downstairs working, but she made me promise to go get her as soon as you woke up.”  
“She’s working?” you repeat in a hollow tone, knowing she needs to be here working, but wishing she was sat by your bed waiting. Stiles seems to pick up on your thoughts and his face softens, coming back to your side to place a comforting hand on your shoulder.  
“She was sitting here with you all day yesterday. We weren’t sure how long you were going to be out so I said I wouldn’t leave your side so that she could work today.”  
“Wait, yesterday? How long have I been out Stiles?” you snap your head to look at him, and he pulls a face to let you know that he’s uncomfortable.  
“Just yesterday, and most of today-” Stiles starts fumbling over his words trying to make it seem less serious than it is.  
“Oh my god two days? How have I been unconscious for two days?” The steady beeping of before that you woke to begins to speed up, announcing the build up of your panic. The door to your room opens, and Stiles sighs loudly in relief at the sight of his best friend’s mother. Melissa looks between the both of you, glances at the machine monitoring your increasing heart beat, and she sighs also, but more in annoyance. She has a stern look on her face when she turns to Stiles, who looks offended before Melissa even opens her mouth.  
“What are you doing to stress Y/N out?”  
“What?” Stiles scoffs, flapping his arms dramatically. He opens his mouth to speak again, but decides better after another look. Defeated, Stiles stomps to the door of your room, glancing back at you before he disappears. “I’ll be right back with your mum.”  
Melissa’s expression is soft and warm in the absence of Stiles, and she turns it on you as she moves closer.  
“Y/N how are you feeling?”  
“A lot like I’ve been stabbed with a large piece of glass and been unconscious for apparently two days,” you answer her sarcastically, which just makes her chuckle.  
“Any pain?” she continues as she adjusts the thin quilt around your legs, turning away to do something with the machinery next to you. Whatever she does turns off the beeping of your heart rate, which has the effect of calming you. You didn’t realise it was even putting you so on edge.  
“In my stomach yes, but it’s manageable right now. A small headache.”  
“I get them too when Stiles is around,” Melissa confides with a wink and you laugh.  
“No,” you draw the word out with a smile. “Stiles is sweet, especially being here when I woke up.” Melissa looks at you with a raised eyebrow, making a noise of understanding. You look at her, and Melissa is looking back with a knowing smile.  
“Now it makes more sense.”  
“What does? What makes sense?” you ask, trying to search her face for answers.  
“Why Stiles hasn’t left that chair since you came into the hospital,” she tells you, flicking her head in the direction of the armchair you’d found him in.  
“He hasn’t left me?” you repeat, disbelieving. The way he had looked has a new meaning now, knowing that Stiles had spent two days sat in an less than comfortable hospital armchair, refusing to leave your bedside.  
“No he hasn’t, and his father sure wasn’t happy about him missing school today to sit here,” she pulls a face at you with a raised eyebrow, and you open your mouth but don’t know what to say. The idea of Stiles sitting here at your bedside, missing school for you, gives you mixed feelings. Of course he’s your friend, probably your best friend, but so are the others and you don’t see any of them here waiting for you to wake up. Is it unusual for him to be sat here with you? Did it actually mean something, or are you overthinking again? You realise that Melissa is still talking, and turn back to her to pay attention.  
“And boy, when you were in surgery I thought he was going to wear a hole in the waiting room with the amount of pacing back and forth.”  
“Surgery?” you exclaim, startling Melissa into silence. “I had surgery? What the hell?”  
“Oh, you didn’t know. The doctor hasn’t been in to talk to you yet, oh god Y/N I am so sorry. The doctor should be here to tell you this, or your mother-” she looks back at the door helplessly, obviously hoping your mum would walk through at that moment to save her. When she doesn’t come into the room, Melissa sighs in defeat and looks down at you. “You had to have surgery because there was concern of broken glass and a tear in your stomach.” Melissa sees the panic in your face as you try to pull up your shirt in order to look down at the damage, but she puts a firm hand on yours to stop you. “Hey hey, you’re okay. There was minimal damage and everything’s fine. You’re all stitched up but you need to take it easy for a couple weeks so that you can heal properly.”  
“This wouldn’t be an issue if I had Scott’s healing powers,” you mumble.  
The door bursting open startles you both, and in comes your mum like a tornado of motherly concern, followed by an uncharacteristically shy Stiles. He hangs back by the door while your mum rushes to your side.  
“You really are awake! How are you feeling? Does it hurt? We can get you some more morphine if it’s too painful. Has the doctor been in to check on you yet?”  
“Mum!” you have to say loudly to stop the barrage of questions that spill from her lips in just a few seconds. She seems to take a breath and collect herself, and you can practically see the curtain being drawn as she puts on her professional demeanour, finally spotting Melissa hovering over you. “Melissa, thanks so much for being here for her when she woke up.”  
“Ah well, that was actually Stiles over there. Been here since she came in.”  
“Of course,” you notice your mother’s smile becomes more forced at the mention of your friend and wonder what that is about. “Thanks for being here Stiles, but it’s probably best you head on home now.”  
“Well uh, I can still stay if you need to go back to work,” Stiles jumps forward into the room, coming back to his post next to your bed on the opposite side of your mother.  
“That’s okay, work have let me take the rest of the day off to take care of you,” your mum smiles down at you and you smile back, but can’t help the pit of worry gnawing at your stomach as you wonder if she can afford to take a second day off work to look after you. The worry mixes with a dash of guilt for being here in the hospital.  
“Hey Stiles you probably should go home,” you tell him. As much as you want him to stay here with you, the sight of him unwashed and clearly having no sleep is worrying you. When Stiles looks down at you he looks betrayed, and you almost laugh. “Really, I could smell you when you were all the way downstairs,” you make a show of scrunching up your nose to make your point, which makes him roll his eyes. “You should go home and shower, maybe get some sleep in an actual bed instead of that armchair. I’ll call you later.”  
As usual, Stiles looks like he wants to argue with you, but looks around at your mother, and Melissa behind him, then sighs in defeat.  
“Okay sure, but I’ll be back tomorrow.”  
“After school,” Melissa interrupts in a warning tone. Stiles pulls a face at her then turns back to you. There’s an awkward moment where it looks as if he’s going to lean down and kiss you goodbye, but you’re both painfully aware of your mother watching. Not to mention the lack of talking about your non relationship. You’re not really sure about the etiquette for saying goodbyes. 

-

Once Stiles has gone, Melissa has finished with her checks, and your mother has talked to your doctor about all kinds of surgery related things and recovery, the two of you sit and eat very mediocre hospital food. She had brought over all the cards and gifts on your table for you to look at, explaining that the flowers and bear were from Stiles, and he had talked to her for about ten minutes about not being sure which was the best option so he had ended up buying you both. There was a card from Stiles, another from Scott, one from Lydia and Allison, and a card filled with a bunch of messages from people at school wishing you well. When your mum put them all back on the table, you’d insisted on having the bear right next to your bed where you could reach it.  
“Was he drinking?” she suddenly asks into the silent room, and you turn to her in confusion, not understanding the question.  
“What? Was who drinking when?”  
“Stiles,” she says solemnly, putting her food down and locking her eyes onto yours. “Before the drive, was he drinking? Is that why he crashed?”  
“Oh my god are you serious? Of course he wasn’t drinking. He’s been my friend for years, when have you ever known Stiles to drink?” you ask her incredulously. There’s a moment of quiet where your mum is staring into your face, eyes flicking back and forth between yours, searching for something. Finally, seeming to get her answer she nods her head in satisfaction. “It was a freak storm, we couldn’t see anything on the road. He did everything he could to keep in control, he even put his arm in front of me when we crashed to protect me.” You say the words clearly, trying to make sure she really understands the crash wasn’t Stiles’ fault.  
“Why were you out on that road into the woods?” she suddenly changes the subject, and you realise this isn’t a general chat between mother and daughter. This is an interrogation.  
“We uh - we -” you stumble for an explanation, but struggle to come up with anything that sounds reasonable to be out in the woods in the night. She narrows her eyes at you, waiting for you to say something, anything. “Sex!” you blurt out.  
“In the woods?” she asks, her eyes widening in surprise. You cover your face in your embarrassment, scolding yourself mentally for being so terrible at lying. “Well that stops right now,” she says sternly. “And don’t think I don’t know that he’s been staying at the house.”  
It’s your turn to look at her in surprise. You had thought that you and Stiles had gotten away with the nightly stay overs with your mother at least. You were both fortunate in that you both had a parent working long hours, often overnight hours, so when you wanted to spend the night with each other at least one of your houses were free. Stiles’ father, the Sheriff, had unfortunately found out about you staying at their house, but you were sure that your mother was unaware. You cringe at the memory of the night Sheriff Stilinski had found out about you staying the night at his house, more than a month after your fling with Stiles had started. 

-

__

_“There is absolutely no way that Dumbledore would beat Gandalf in a wizard fight,” Stiles scoffs at you, causing you to laugh._  
_“Does it really matter Stiles? I mean we are talking about fictional characters here,” you remind him, and he turns to you in shock._  
_“Does it matter? Does it - oh my god Y/N, this right now could be the most important conversation in all of history, and you are on the wrong side of it.”_  
_You’re both lying on his bed under the quilts, your head buried into the crook of his armpit, his hand tracing small patterns on the bare skin of your shoulder, your arm resting on his stomach and one leg thrown over his._  
_“I think a more important conversation is whether or not wizards are actually a real thing. Do you think Deaton is one?” you ask him excitedly, but he’s shaking his head thoughtfully._  
_“No, I’m pretty sure he’s just a really mysterious veterinarian who knows a lot about werewolves and magical herbs.”_  
“Okay but just maybe-”  
_You’re interrupted by the door to Stiles’ room opening, startling you both and making you jump apart. Unfortunately Stiles’ is at the edge of the bed, and in his surprise almost ends up falling off onto the floor, the two of you clinging to his duvet to cover your nakedness._  
_“Hey kid, I thought-” Sheriff Stilinski stops in the door, taking in the scene before him. He looks at the two of you in his son’s bed, quite clearly not dressed, and his disapproving frown settles on Stiles._  
_“Dad hey, I thought you were going to be working all night. What are you ah - what are you doing home?” Stiles tries to subtly provide you with more of the duvet, but you already have it pulled right up to your neck._  
_“I’m sure you did,” his dad replies in a very un-amused tone. “Hi Y/N,” he nods his head towards you, still keeping his eyes on his son._  
_“Hi Sheriff,” you squeak, burying your face into the quilt, wondering if the whole room smells like what the two of you had been doing not half an hour ago. Oh god, if he had been that much earlier, the things he would have seen. You want the whole bed to swallow you up and make you disappear._  
_“Maybe you and I should have a little talk, Stiles,” he’s saying, and Stiles’ face pales at the idea. Blindly he grabs his boxers from where they’re laying next to the bed, shoving them under the quilt to awkwardly put them on, which makes his dad seem to realise just how naked the two of you are. He suddenly looks very uncomfortable and turns away, telling Stiles to meet him in the kitchen._  
_Stiles looks at you as he’s pulling on clothes with an expression that’s begging you for help but you can only shrug helplessly. Once he’s left and the door to the room is shut firmly, you gather your own clothes from the floor of Stiles’ bedroom, and once dressed sit at the edge of his bed waiting._  
_When Stiles’ returns his cheeks are bright red, and he looks almost traumatised. You slap your hand over your mouth to stop yourself from laughing at the whole situation, and Stiles narrows his eyes at you._  
_“Hey, this is not funny!”_  
_“It’s a little funny,” you admit with a grin on your face, and Stiles can only keep his stern look for a moment before his face breaks into a smile, too. “Is he really mad?”_  
_“No, not really. Well, a little. He just says to make sure we’re being safe,” Stiles pulls a face that makes you think he may have just had something similar to 'the talk’ with his father, and at that you can’t help but start laughing. Stiles telling you it still isn’t funny only makes you laugh harder, until he’s pushing you back on the bed hovering over you with an amused expression. “He didn’t say anything about you not being allowed to stay the night,” he says, his fingers dancing up your sides under your shirt, and suddenly you’re not laughing any more._  
_“I’m not that tired yet if sleep is what you’re thinking about,” you tease him, and a smirk stretches Stiles’ lips._  
_“Sleep,” he breathes whilst leaning down to plant his lips on your neck, “is definitely not what I was thinking about.”_


	5. Jealous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to those who are actually following this story for taking so long to post up a new chapter, I've been extremely unmotivated when it comes to writing the past couple weeks. Promise the next couple chapters will be updated very soon.

You wake the next day just in time for some not so delicious hospital breakfast, and once that’s over with you realise there isn’t a lot to do. Your mother and Melissa have both told you multiple time that you’re not to get out of bed for a few days, and given you hard stares to drive in their point.  
To pass the time you flick through what channels are on the small television opposite your bed until the door to your room opens. You look up into the grinning face of Stiles, who comes into your room with his backpack slung over his shoulder. 

“Stiles what are you doing here? School hasn’t finished yet.”

“I’m on my lunch,” Stiles explains, placing his bag onto your bed by your legs. “You didn’t call me last night so I dropped in to make sure you’re okay,” he explains in a bright voice, but you think you can see a hint of worry in his still pale face, and you feel guilty for not checking in. 

“I’m sorry, my mum stayed late with me last night and then I basically passed out. Getting stabbed and patched back up is pretty exhausting you know,” you joke, and Stiles pulls a face at you that says he doesn’t appreciate your brilliant stabbing joke. 

“It’s fine but I figured you’d also be pretty bored, so I brought some stuff from your house.” Stiles unzips the backpack and pulls out your laptop and a few books that you recognise from your own room. 

“Oh thank you,” you sigh happily, taking your laptop first and placing it on your bedside table within reach. “But how did you get this?”

“I stopped by your house before school and convinced your mum to let me grab things for you. It took a lot of convincing,” he frowns at you in confusion. “I get the feeling she doesn’t like me.”

You slap a hand over your mouth to stifle a laugh, eyes wide in realisation; Stiles narrows his eyes at you in suspicion. 

“Oh god I’m sorry. I may have - well, she asked me about the accident. More she asked me why we were out in the woods,” you start drawing out each word to delay telling him, but Stiles just raises his eyebrows as he waits. “I told her we were there for sex,” you rush it out. Stiles reacts with his entire body, throwing up his arms and shaking his head. 

“What? Why? You said - why?” he asks loudly, incredulously. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to tell her!” you defend yourself but his ridiculous reaction just makes you want to laugh more, and you can’t help the giggles that start. 

“Hey no, stop that. This is not funny.” Stiles warns you, but you can see the smile twitching at the corner of his lips. 

“It’s a little funny,” you say and burst out laughing, which makes Stiles chuckle with you. 

“Stop laughing,” he says while laughing himself, coming down on you to push you back into the bed, fingers falling to your sides to tickle you. You laugh and try to push him off telling him to stop, and then you’re groaning because of a shooting pain in your stomach. 

“Oh god I’m sorry,” his face falls, looking down to your wound with concern. Before he can pull away, you reach out and place a firm hand on his arm to pull him back to you. His face is just inches from yours, his hazel eyes gazing into yours, and you can see him swallow hard, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. You think that he looks nervous this close and it confuses you, because the two of you were never nervous around one another. Not usually, anyway. 

“Are you going to kiss me Stiles?” you ask him in a whisper. 

“Yeah,” he nods, his head barely a fraction so that you almost miss it. “Yeah, I am.”

When he leans in to close the very short distance between you his eyes flutter to a close, his long lashes resting against his pale skin. His lips meet with yours gently and your eyes close too, melting into the feeling of his soft lips on yours. His hand comes up to your face, thumb gently stroking the skin of your cheek, his other hand on the bed next to you, leaning on it to lower himself closer to you. You reach a hand up to the back of his neck, running your fingers up through his thick hair, parting your lips to deepen the kiss, your tongues meeting.  
By the time you part the both of you are breathing hard, and when you open your eyes Stiles’ are still closed. He leans down to press his forehead to yours, thumb still caressing your cheek. 

“I think we have a lot to talk about,” Stiles swallows, finally opening his eyes to look into yours. His words make your heart flutter, and a hundred doubts, questions and worries fly through your mind. Does he want to end whatever it is you guys are doing? Admit that he doesn’t feel anything for you? Surely not after a kiss like that, right? “But,” he groans suddenly, “it’ll have to be tonight, I need to go back to school.”

You try to hide the disappointment but it must show on your face because Stiles smiles down at you fondly and plants his lips firmly on your forehead.  
“I’ll see you tonight,” he says in a tone full of promises, gathering his backpack and flying out of the room. 

-

You expect Stiles - really, you’d hoped for Stiles. You’d spent all day worrying about the conversation promised to you, and wondering if Stiles is feeling the same things you are. 

Despite your tiny disappointment, you still can’t help but smile when Scott comes over with his goofy smile. You give him a one armed hug, but when he pulls back there’s a strange expression on his face.  
“What is it?” you ask him, and Scott is doing his best not to smile but it pulls at his lips. 

“Uh - you smell a lot like Stiles.”

Remembering the kiss from earlier, your cheeks flame red in embarrassment, which only makes Scott laugh. You hit him in the arm, but know that it probably only tickles the werewolf. 

“What are you doing here Scott?” you ask, and he raises an eyebrow. 

“You mean instead of Stiles?” he smirks and you roll your eyes, even though he’s not wrong. “Well I came to see if you’re okay since you’re my friend and you were hurt.”

“I’m okay. They won’t let me get up for a couple days, and then I might be stuck here for a couple weeks.”

“Are you in pain?” he asks, his face full of concern and hand already reaching out for yours. You smile and shake your head. 

“It’s okay Scott, morphine works nearly as well as werewolf powers.”

Scott throws himself down onto the armchair next to your hospital bed, propping his feet on your bed next to you. 

“Stiles wanted to be here,” Scott says, an amused smile still on his face. “His dad forced him to help out at the station tonight as punishment for missing school yesterday,” he says and you feel a bite of guilt. 

“Thanks,” you smile awkwardly at him, and there’s a very short moment of silence before Scott has to speak. 

“So you two… that’s a thing?”

You groan and nod your head slowly, “I mean sort of. It’s just been - we’re not dating - we’ve just been-” you wave your hands in front of you as you try to grasp the right words to explain your whole situation with Stiles. 

“You’ve been sleeping together for a while.” Scott says and you turn to him in shock. He’s hiding a laugh behind his hand and you sigh, rolling your eyes again. 

“You’ve already talked to Stiles,” you guess, to which he nods. 

“It’s funny, I remember when you guys basically hated each other.”

You laugh, remembering your early days with Stiles Stilinski and your original rivalry. For a long while you didn’t really know Stiles, but you were friends with Scott. Your mothers were both single parents working here in the hospital so often you would be forced to spend your time together when one was working. You became close friends with Scott, but of course he had another best friend and the two of you rivalled for his attention. 

-

_“Hey, those are mine,” you slap the hand of your friend Scott as he reaches for the bag of candy set out in front of your homework, having already eaten the ones in front of him. He grumbles at you but returns back to the work in front of him, and you only make him wait a minute before pushing the bag over to him. Scott grins in the big, goofy way that he has and you laugh with a shake of your head._

_Behind you, the door to Scott’s house opens and you look up at the clock to see if it’s already time for your mother’s shift to end._

_“Great, what is she doing here?” a familiar voice sets you on edge, and Stiles comes in to drop his bag onto the table you and Scott are sat at. You give Scott a look of betrayal, and he looks helplessly between the both of you, sighing._  
_“We all have the same class that we have work for, Stiles needed help and we’re already doing it. I am not doing the same work twice just because the two of you can’t get over this stupid thing,” Scott says, waving his pen between both you and Stiles._

_“There’s no thing,” you scoff, rolling your eyes. “He just makes it difficult to be around him,” you narrow your eyes in the direction of Stiles, who is already glaring at you._

_“How would you know when you both refuse to be around each other?” Scott asks you with a raised eyebrow. You narrow your eyes at him knowing that you have no argument back, and in the corner of your vision can see the smug smile on Stiles’ face._

_“Well she is insufferable, there’s no way I’m going to be able to do my work with her here,” Stiles shakes his head, sitting down on the other side of Scott with a huff._

_“Do you really find me that distracting?” you ask him with a smirk, and he leans across Scott to glare at you, eyes narrowed and mouth open._

_“Not in that way. God."_

_Scott and you continue to work on your homework whilst Stiles eats the candy in front of Scott - your candy - interrupting the awkward silence with the rustling of the wrappers. It grates on your nerves until you slam your pen down with a sigh, making the two boys jump in their seats._

_"That’s it. I have a game I could be playing instead of this.”_

_“We all have games we could be playing Y/N,” Stiles says, and even though you’re not looking at him you just know that he’s rolling his eyes._

_“I don’t,” Scott shrugs. “I could never get into that ridiculous online game with all the magic creatures or whatever,” he continues, not even looking up at either of you._

_“It is not ridiculous!” you protest, feeling offended._

_“There’s more to it than just magic creatures,” Stiles protests also, the two of you speaking over one another and then stopping suddenly, locking eyes over the head of your friend in common. You narrow your eyes, and the look is mirrored in his face._

_“No,” you shake your head in denial. “We are not talking about the same game.”_

_“No way,” Stiles denies, somehow in agreement with you._

_“Oh, but you are,” Scott says smugly, finally looking up with a big smile on his face, head flicking back and forth between you both. “I’ve been dying to get your guys’ reaction to that at the same time,” he laughs, and you hit him in the arm just as Stiles does on the other side._

_“Hey! At least now you guys know you have something in common so maybe you can get along nerding out over your craft of war.”_

_“World of Warcraft!” you and Stiles both correct him, looking at each other awkwardly. It just feels wrong to be in agreement with Stiles Stilinski over something._

_“It doesn’t matter anyway, he probably plays as Horde,” you spit in disgust. “I play with people who are far better than him.”_

_You don’t understand why Scott is still smirking at you, but it fills with you a dread; so much that you barely even hear Stiles’ insult in retaliation to you, and him bragging about his own online friends. Scott’s smirk is unnerving, and he turns it on his other best friend to quiet him down, too._

_“Hey Y/N what’s the name of your friend you told me about that you play with? It was pretty unique, right?”_

_“What does that matter? It’s not even an English name, I’m pretty sure he’s from Poland,” you narrow your eyes in suspicion and suddenly Stiles is staring at you, surprise on his face._

_“No way,” he murmurs, and Scott is nodding his head at Stiles, turning to you for your answer._

_“Mieczyslaw, I think it’s pronounced,” you say, looking between the two boys sat next to you as you wait for the explanation._

_“Yeah that’s how it’s pronounced,” Stiles mutters bitterly, and now you’re even more confused._

_“What the hell is going on? How would you know how to pronounce a Polish name?”_

_“Because it’s my name!” Stiles snaps, and you gape at him, your lips parting to respond but no words come to you._

_“Your name is Stiles…” you says slowly, and he frowns at you._

_“You think my real name is Stiles Stilinski?” he asks, and he’s looking at you as if you’re an idiot for thinking so._

_“Everyone thinks that’s your real name!” you defend yourself. “But even if that is your name, it doesn’t mean that you’re the one I’ve been playing online with!”_  
_Now they’re both looking at you doubtfully, and you know that they’re probably right because really, how many people can there be with that kind of name? But the idea is just too crazy. Stiles pulls out his phone, tapping away a message that you can’t see, and then he’s looking at you with a raised eyebrow. Your phone bleeps with a message, and you grab for it, heart sinking as you read the message._

_**|Mieczyslaw| It’s me.** _

-

You suppose really, you had lost that competition as you know that Stiles and Scott have a strong connection that you definitely have no chance of rivaling.  
“It started pretty much out of nowhere and we denied it was even happening for a while. Then it was just - you know - just sex, so there wasn’t any need to advertise it to you all. But now, it’s kind of complicated.” You continue trying to explain your situation to Scott. 

“Complicated?” Scott asks, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. You look at him with your mouth open to speak but pause, for a moment wishing your friend was a girl so you could invest in some real boy talk, all about your feelings. 

“You… like him?” Scott asks, obviously trying to understand you, which is sweet of him. 

“I like him,” you sigh in frustration. “Which is stupid,” you burst out suddenly. “I know that he’s basically in love with Lydia and has been since we met, and those feelings definitely haven’t changed.” You know you sound bitter, but you’re thinking about that kiss again. The kiss that forced you to acknowledge your growing feelings, and has changed your whole relationship that isn’t even a relationship.

“I don’t know if his feelings for Lydia have changed at all, but I’m pretty sure he feels something for you. You should be talking to Stiles about all this.”

“Every time it seems like we’re about to talk something happens to interrupt,” you laugh. “Like tonight, he said we’d talk and now he’s not here. But that’s enough about me and my feelings - how are you with this whole Isaac and Allison thing?” you divert the attention away from your messed up situation.  
“Is there a thing?” Scott asks quickly, and you smile at him sympathetically.  
“Sorry, I mean the whole possibility of a thing." 

"I can’t stop it,” Scott sighs. “Allison and I are over, and there was a time I thought that was only temporary but now,” Scott shrugs at his unfinished sentence. “I’m not thrilled about it, but they have their own lives and I can’t get in the way of that.”

“When did you become so wise?” you narrow your eyes at your friend, and the two of you laugh. 

You spend the next few hours with Scott talking and joking, watching comedies on your laptop until Melissa comes up at the end of her shift to take him home. 

In the quiet after Scott leaves, you settle down into the hospital bed to get as comfortable as if possible. Just as you think you’re in a position that might allow for sleep, the buzzing of your phone startles you awake again. 

**|Stiles| I’m so sorry I couldn’t come see you after school**

****|Y/N| Sorry I got you in trouble with your dad. It’s okay, Scott kept me company** **

****|Stiles| Should I be jealous?** **

****|Y/N| Would you be jealous?** **

You bite on your lower lip as you stare down at the messages waiting for his reply, your foot tapping to a beat of nerves. It’s not the conversation you had been hoping for, but it would be a start in figuring out how Stiles feels about you. His last reply had been immediate, so why is this one taking so long? Figuring out how to let you down? Tell you had had just been joking?  
“Definitely jealous,” the sound of his voice makes you snap your head up from your phone, your stomach blooming with the feeling of nerves and a little excitement. Stiles is standing in your room staring at you, a smirk on his lips. 


	6. Right Girl

“So you’d be jealous?” you ask Stiles in a teasing tone, a smile playing on your lips. 

“Very jealous,” Stiles smirks as he closes the door to your room, moving in to sit beside you. “More jealous than I thought I would be,” Stiles admits with a thoughtful frown on his face, focused on you. 

You’re not sure what to say, or if you’re supposed to say anything, but his eyes are focused on you so intently, locking you in his gaze. He starts to tap his foot in a nervous patter, his fingers lacing together in front of him, his tongue darting out across his lips like he does when he has something to say. Usually something that should be listened to. 

“I know what we’ve been doing wasn’t ah - wasn’t really meant to be anything at all, we were just -” Stiles pauses with a frown, as if unsure what you were both doing. 

“Comforting each other,” you provide, and he makes a noise of agreement. 

“Right. Well, we’ve never really talked about it - about us.” Your stomach explodes with the butterflies of nerves at the mention of ‘us’, and Stiles is looking at you nervously, searching your face for a reaction. 

“It didn’t really feel like there was a need to… until recently,” you sigh, and Stiles almost looks guilty. You know you’re both thinking about that moment in the locker room, which was just a few days ago. Just a few days for things to change so drastically. 

“We should talk about that,” he sighs. 

“You kissing Lydia? Yeah, maybe,” you mumble, with maybe just the smallest hint of bitterness. 

“Hey, she kissed me!” he bursts in his own defence. “It was to stop my panic attack,” he adds more quietly. 

“That wasn’t just stopping a panic attack Stiles. That kiss-” you pause, for a moment wanting to go back on this conversation, knowing one way or another it’s going to change everything. “That kiss was something. You didn’t see me, but I saw the look on your face after she kissed you.”

“God Y/N, I was surprised okay?” he runs a hand through his hair, shifting forward on the chair to perch at its edge. “I can’t deny it - we both know I’ve liked Lydia a long time-”

“Loved,” you interrupt him, and he frowns at you in question. “You’ve always said you’re in love with her.”

Stiles rolls his eyes, “okay I may have mentioned that a couple times.” You raise a challenging eyebrow at him, and Stiles pulls a face to say you’re being difficult. “What I’m trying to say is when Lydia kissed me, yes there was a moment where I was like this is it, I’m being kissed by the girl of my dreams.” It feels like your stomach has plummeted straight down through the ground, and you try not to let it show on your face. “But then the kiss was over, and I was looking at Lydia and-” Stiles frowns down at his hand, and despite the pain of hearing about the kiss from him you can’t stop watching his face. “I realised she was the wrong girl.”

There’s a silence in the room, you staring at Stiles and him staring down at his own hands. It takes a moment for his words to make any sense to you. Lydia was the wrong girl? The Lydia Martin? For Stiles Stilinski? It’s not making any sense to you. 

“What? you ask. 

Stiles finally lifts his head to look back at you, and his expression is so open, almost vulnerable. His eyes flicker back and forth between yours, searching for something. 

" _You’re_ the right girl Y/N.”

It’s as if your body doesn’t know how to react to his words - blood rushes to your cheeks so that they’re likely a cherry red, your stomach flutters with a hundred nerves and excitement, your heart hammers against your chest, and you’re sure that you’re sweating more than before. Stiles is still searching your face, his knee jerking with his own nerves. 

“Please say something,” he says, but before you can open your mouth to reply he’s jumping up to his feet and pacing, a hand going up through his hair to mess it even more. “I know we were just messing around and comforting each other, and we never really talked about feelings and having a relationship.”

A smile creeps onto your lips and you say his name, but Stiles is refusing to look at you, instead spilling out all the thoughts tumbling through his mind. 

“I was sure I could get into this whole thing without falling for you and it seemed like I was, I didn’t even realise that that’s what was happening. But god, anything that happens I find myself looking for you and any night that we don’t spend together honestly doesn’t feel right. I want to be around you all the time and it’s driving me crazy because I’ve no idea how you feel, or if you’re even feeling.” Stiles is pacing, flailing his arms as he talks and still not looking at you, so he doesn’t see the large grin on your face. You say his name again, but still he doesn’t stop his tirade. 

“The last few days I think things have changed between us and I hoped that maybe you were feeling the same things as me, but I don’t really know and it’s killing me. If you don’t it’s okay - I mean I’ve just made a fool of myself, but I can’t wonder any more so-” Stiles stops when he finally looks at you to see you grinning back at him. “What? Oh god why are you smiling like that?”

“Just knowing that I haven’t been the only one having these thoughts and feelings,” you laugh. 

“What? You really -?” Stiles moves closer to you, looking hopeful. 

“Of course I like you too Stiles. I don’t know when it happened honestly, you’ve completely crept up on me but I realised it when I saw you and Lydia kissing. It crushed me,” you admit to him, and Stiles looks sad at your confession. He pulls the armchair up close to your bed, perching on the edge to lean closer to you, taking your hand in both of his. 

“I really am sorry about that, I wish you didn’t have to see that but also I’m a little glad it happened.” You roll your eyes at Stiles and he laughs. “No, not like that. Because if it hadn’t happened I may not have realised I wanted more with you.”

“I know,” you tell him with a smile, laving your fingers with his. “It’s the moment I realised that too.”

Stiles laughs like he can’t believe it and pulls your hand up to press it against his lips, and if your smile gets any bigger you’re going to have sore cheeks. 

“It’s been a crazy few days since that realisation,” you say thoughtfully, Stiles nodding his head in agreement. “When you went down under that water it tore me up,” you shake your head as you remember Stiles looking so lifeless. “I could hardly stand to look at you like that but couldn’t stop checking. I almost fought Deaton to pull you out myself.” You both laugh at the thought of you fighting the veterinarian, but then Stiles’ expression is serious. 

“When I realised I was covered in your blood down in that cellar,” Stiles says quietly and swallows hard, his grip on your hand tightening. “I nearly lost it, and then I ran all the way back to you. When I found you-” he squeezes his eyes shut tightly, wanting to banish the memory from his mind but remembering it so clearly. “You looked like I already lost you and I couldn’t handle it, it tore me up inside. It was Isaac who found your pulse and called for the ambulance, and it was Melissa who kept you - kept you alive until the ambulance got there. I was useless,” he whispers the last part. “All I could do was cry and try to fight anyone who tried to pull me away from you, even when they were trying to save you.”

Stiles looks up at you and you realise there are tears in his eyes, so you pull your hand out of his grip to press it against his face instead. Stiles closes his eyes when your skin meets his and leans in to your hand, breathing a shaky breath. 

“Stiles, you need to stop thinking about that. It’s over now and I’m okay - a little sore and recovering for a while, but okay. I want this to be a happy night, so from now on it’s only happiness. Okay?”

“Only happiness,” Stiles opens his eyes to smile at you, wiping at his tears. 

“Good, because I think this is where we’re supposed to kiss,” you say with a smirk, and Stiles barks with laughter. He gets up though and moves over to kiss you firmly, his lips always feeling so amazing pressed against yours. It’s not a long kiss but Stiles pulls away only for a moment, kissing you again, and again, peppering you with short kisses to make you laugh. You pull back the quilt and Stiles clambers up onto your bed, sitting back against the headrest and wrapping an arm around you so that you can cuddle into his side, your head resting on his shoulder. 

“I have a question that I was wondering earlier,” you say after a while of silence, and Stiles hums for you to go on. “How did you know which books to bring to me?”

Stiles laughs, “what?”

“Well I have a lot of books in my rooms, but you managed to pick out the ones that I haven’t read yet and was planning to.”

“Oh well hardly picked out,” Stiles shakes his head. “You always stack your new books next to the stand by your bedside table. You told me that once.” The fact that he remembers such a small detail that you once said in passing fills you with warmth, and you lean up as best you can without stretching your stomach to plant a sweet kiss on his cheek, and Stiles smiles, kissing the top of your head and tightening his arm around you.

You both fall into a comfortable conversation, talking about subjects that are familiar to you, and you’re still in this position when the nurse comes in later to tell Stiles that visiting hours are over. He looks like he’s going to resist, but knowing he has school in the morning you convince him to leave and go home. 

-

The next week passes in moments of hospital food, reading the books that Stiles had brought you, watching Netflix shows to pass through the boredom of being stuck in hospital, and all your friends visiting some nights after school. And Stiles. He’s there in your room every day when he’s not at school or home sleeping. He sits with you watching shows, he cuddles with you in your hospital bed, he brings you homework that you work on together, he sits holding your hand and trying to charm your mother when she’s there with you, he brings you takeout food when you complain about what they’re serving you, he kisses you hello and goodbye every day and you honestly don’t think you could be happier. Well, you could if you were home without the hole in your stomach, but things feel pretty great as they are. 

Scott visits almost every day to bring you joy in his goofy smile and tease you about the new developments in your relationship with Stiles. You can tell he’s happy for the two of you though, from the huge grin on his face when he walks into your room to see you and Stiles sat beside one another holding hands. You try to plaster on a polite smile when Lydia walks in behind him with a sweet smile on her face, and a bouquet of flowers in her delicate hands. Stiles squeezes your hand in comfort, and you relax, reminding yourself that Lydia is also your friend and not an enemy. When her gaze falls on your fingers laced with Stiles, you’re sure that there’s a flicker of annoyance or something in her expression, but it falls away in an instant to be replaced with a bright smile. 

“Well it’s about time, we never thought you two would finally get together,” Lydia jokes, and you and Stiles laugh awkwardly. 

“I did,” Scott raises his hand, and this time your laugh is genuine. That night is a fun night with the four of you hanging out once you get over the awkwardness of being faced with Lydia, and you’re reminded of the friendship you had before. You still can’t shake the feeling though that her eyes settle on your hand laced with Stiles'and her face tightens a little. 

The next day Isaac comes by to visit you during school hours claiming he has no classes that day, and even though you don’t believe him you don’t push him on going to school. He lets out a loud breath as he flops down in the chair beside your bed that you’ve come to know as Stiles’ chair. 

“Is it really that bad if I like Allison?” he asks so suddenly throwing his arms out, looking at you with a desperate expression, wanting you to tell him that’s he not doing anything wrong. 

“It’s a complicated situation,” you say carefully, to which Isaac narrows his eyes at you, but he doesn’t answer. “Scott and Allison were - well they were first loves, and it was pretty intense. They were one of those couples that everyone thought were going to be forever, and nobody really considered their separation to be permanent. Scott is just coming to terms with the fact that they’re not falling back together, and it may take some time for him to come to terms with her falling for you.”

“You think she’s falling for me?” he asks immediately, and you have to hide a smile behind your hand. 

“I don’t spend a lot of time with Allison but yeah, I think maybe she is.” A smile twitches quickly at his lips, but he does his best to play it cool making you laugh. 

“Sooo… Stiles has been looking pretty perky the last couple days,” Isaac says with a raised eyebrow, and you chew your bottom lip to try and stop the grin threatening to take over your face. 

“We finally talked about us,” you tell Isaac, still doing your best to fight the smile, and Isaac makes a humming noise of understanding. Unable to fight it, you finally allow the grin to take over your face, causing Isaac to roll his eyes at you, to which you just shrug your shoulders. “You and Allison will get to have your conversation soon, too.”

-

Recovery is slow; it’s nearly a week of laying in bed before you are finally able to stand up and walk slowly around your hospital room, only doing a small lap before needing to crash back into your bed, exhausted. Stiles is right by your side, ambling beside you with his arm held out behind your back, a worried expression on his face as if he expects you to fall any moment, and he’s right at your side to help you back into your bed. The next day you walk a little more and are allowed to take a short shower in the small bathroom attached to your room, careful not to drench the dressing covering the wound in your stomach too much. Being washed makes you feel so much more human, and Stiles is upset later that day when he discovers that he’s missed helping you shower, which makes you laugh. 

Another week of slowly moving around your room, having your wound redressed daily mostly by Melissa. Your friends visit almost every day, in groups, occasionally just Scott, or just Isaac, and a lot more just Stiles. He spends a portion of every day in your hospital room with you, coming by sometimes on his lunch to bring you food, coming straight from school nearly every day. Staying late until the nurses come to kick him out, usually even after visiting hours have finished because they know how much he kicks up a fuss when it’s time to leave. One nurse had offered to set up a cot bed for him to stay the night during the weekend and you had gotten so excited about the idea of falling asleep in his arms once again, but Stiles had declined the offer, much to your confusion. 

“You don’t want to stay the night?” you ask him, trying to make your voice casual but knowing there’s a hint of the hurt you feel. It feels like it’s been so long since the two of you had spent the night together, and it makes you feel some distance from him. 

“It wouldn’t be any good for you,” Stiles says with a smile. “I haven’t been sleeping that great, and I worry I’d only keep you awake." 

You frown and pull him closer to you, Stiles’ avoiding your gaze but you place a gentle finger under his chin to turn the boy’s face to you. You spend a few minutes taking in every feature on his face, noticing that his skin is still as pale as when you first woke up after the accident, the occasional flush of pink on his cheeks. There’s dark circles under his eyes that start to represent bruises, and you think there might be more worry lines creasing his skin than before. 

"Stiles, are you okay?” you ask him seriously, and he playfully rolls his eyes at you. 

“How many times do I have to remind you that you’re the one in hospital?” he asks you, placing a gentle kiss on the end of your nose, but when you don’t reply he sighs. “Honestly, just some trouble sleeping. Maybe I’m taking my adderall too late in the day,” he shrugs off your concern. Even after you say your goodbyes that night, you’re still chewing your lip in worry. 

-

It feels so good to be back in your own bed, although there’s little relief in it when your mother refuses to let you return to school yet. A few more days, she keeps saying, maybe just a week. You’ve read nearly all the books that were in your unread pile, and scoured the corners of Netflix for all the shows and films you can handle. You still get daily visits from Stiles, more often than not when your mum works her longs hours at the hospital. There’s a lot of cuddling, a lot more kissing and making out, but he’s still too concerned about your pain to have anything go beyond that, even when you practically beg. 

“Hey, Scott asked me an awkward question today that maybe we should address,” Stiles says whilst his fingers run through your hair; you’re tucked comfortably into his side, your head on his chest and arm thrown over his body, legs tangled together.

“Hmm, what’s that?” you ask tiredly, sleep pulling at the corners of your mind, far too comfortable for in depth conversation. 

“Are you my girlfriend?” he rushes the words out so fast that you think his tongue almost stumbles over itself. Your mind is jolted awake, and you sit a little, leaning on your elbow to look at him. His cheeks are flushed, a shy smile on his lips. 

“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?” you ask him slowly with a raised eyebrow. 

“Well I mean - what we’ve been doing it feels like - probably should have brought it up earlier maybe -” Stiles falters, looking like he might throw up with nerves, and you almost laugh, feeling bad for letting him stew on the question. 

“I’d like you to be my boyfriend, Stiles.” You interrupt him before he can start on another nonsensical tirade without actually asking the question he wants to ask. A wide grin breaks out over Stiles’ face. 

“Good,” he growls, leaning over to push you back into the bed, his lips crashing down on yours in a hard and intense kiss. You kiss him back, parting your lips to meet his tongue with your own, your arms sliding down his sides to the belt loops of his jeans, pulling him down closer to you, wrapping a leg around his. His hips grind down onto you, and he groans into your mouth, his hand taking hold of yours and pressing it down into the bed above your head. You can feel him pressing against you and you moan, biting down on his bottom lip but all too soon Stiles is pulling back from your kiss and you whimper at the loss of contact, still gripping the fabric of his jeans to hold him against you. 

“Y/N we shouldn’t, your wound-” he says breathlessly and you groan in impatience. 

“I’ll tell you if it hurts Stiles, but right now I want you and I know you want me too,” you say with a smirk, moving your hips to rub against him making a point. He contemplates for a moment, his tongue slowly wetting his lips and the small action makes you want to rip his shirt from him right there. In answer, Stiles nods his head quickly and comes back down to kiss you hungrily, desperately, his hands travelling down your body, grasping the leg that’s wrapped around him. 

-

Afterwards you both lie naked wrapped around each other, the duvet thrown carelessly to cover your sweating bodies. Stiles is kissing you tenderly, his fingers tracing a pattern across your hip that leaves a trail of goosebumps and shivers. He pulls away to look at you, full of concern. 

“Did it hurt you at all? Do you think your stitches are okay?” he asks you, and you smile at his worry, leaning up to kiss him sweetly. 

“It’s okay Stiles, it didn’t hurt that much,” he opens his mouth to protest or exclaim how it shouldn’t have happened if it hurt at all but you continue before he can. “And any pain has most definitely been covered up by the pleasure.” You smirk at him and wiggle your eyebrows suggestively, which makes him laugh. 

Leaning behind him, Stiles grabs his phone from your bedside table and presses the button to bring the screen to life. There are no missed messages or calls, no emergencies to disturb your peace, but Stiles groans still. 

“It’s getting late,” he sighs, and you frown. 

“So? You’ve spent the night many times before,” you shrug, already settling yourself into his body to get as comfortable as you were before. 

“Y/N,” he sighs again, making you look up into his face. “I told you about the not sleeping, and while you’re still recovering you need all the sleep you can get.”

“Stiles I’m not allowed back to school yet so I have plenty of time to sleep whenever I want if you do keep me awake.” He still doesn’t look convinced, and you wrap an arm tightly around his stomach to prevent him from getting up just yet. “Please? I’d really like to spend the night with my boyfriend,” you say with a smile, putting emphasis on the word. “It feels like it’s been so much longer since we’ve been able to stay together all night,” you grumble while nuzzling into the crook of his neck, inhaling the intoxicating smell that just screams Stiles. 

“Alright,” Stiles laughs, the sound rumbling through his chest. “I’ll stay.” You’re both grinning at his decision.

-

“NO!” his scream wakes you so suddenly, pulling you abruptly from the deep, comfortable sleep you had been in. The feeling is so disorientating that you don’t understand what is happening for a moment, but next to you Stiles screams again, making you jump. You scramble for the switch of your lamp next to your bed, bathing your room in a gentle orange glow. 

Stiles is sat up in the bed next to you, his arms thrown through the air as he fights with something that you can’t see in the room with you, screaming and crying in terror. You grab his arm to pull it down by his side where it’s not likely to hit you in the face and wrap your other arm around him to make Stiles face you, then pulling his head down to your shoulder, wrapping both your arms around his shaking form. 

“Oh god Stiles, it’s alright, you’re okay,” you murmur comfortingly as his shouts die off and he’s left crying instead, his hands gripping at your shirt and holding onto you tightly. You stay like that, rocking him gently as he cries into your neck, holding on to you for dear life, until his shoulders stop shaking with his sobs and he comes up for air. You stroke his damp face, and his eyes frantically move over your face, his hands on your arms as if he’s afraid to stop touching you. 

“It’s okay,” you repeat, and he’s nodding his head slowly but you can feel him trembling. You lean in to place a kiss on his forehead and for a moment Stiles tenses, but when your lips make contact with his skin he relaxes, letting out a shaky breath. “A nightmare?” you ask him in a whisper. 

“I’m sorry, this is why I didn’t want to stay here, in case I woke you up.”

“God Stiles, if this is how you wake up I want to be here to help you, to comfort and hold onto you." 

"I’m sorry,” he whispers again, repeating his apology until you shut him up with a small kiss, and then he’s kissing you hard. Eventually his shaking stops, and he seems a lot calmer, and so you convince him to lie down with you again. He says he doesn’t think he’ll sleep, but you just want to hold him; and so it’s you who holds Stiles, arms wrapped around him, fingers running through his thick hair soothingly as he presses his face into your chest, the lamp still turned on. 

Ever so slowly he drifts into a light sleep, but you are stuck awake. The worry you’d had before over his sleeping patterns is now a deep pit in your stomach, having never seen anyone filled with such terror at even their worst nightmares.


	7. Open Doors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a pretty angsty, jealousy filled chapter, and an introduction into the start of Nogitsune Stiles which I want to write about in this fic - so prepare for so much more angst. Also updating with two chapters at once because my update rate has sucked so bad.

The nights with Stiles get steadily worse, until the point that there isn’t a moment where he is resting peacefully. You lie next to him as he squirms around on his side of the bed, gripping the bed sheets beneath you in fear, mumbling a chorus of ‘no’ and 'don’t let them in’. It terrifies and worries you. He flails around when it gets bad, screaming into the night to wake himself up, drenched in sweat in tears as you hold him until he settles. Some nights it’s impossible to wake him, and you try to hold him until the nightmares passes or worsens, and some nights you know there’s nothing to do but move out of the bed and try to sleep elsewhere. You spend your free time researching nightmares and sleep paralysis, and possible cures but come up empty. 

“Am I awake? Is this real? Am I awake?” he cries into your shoulder and you do your best to soothe him, stroking his thick hair and rubbing his back, holding him close to you. 

“You’re awake Stiles, I promise,” you say to him, and he’s shaking his head as if he doesn’t believe you. 

“How do I know if you’re real?” he looks up suddenly with a face full of fear, his hand grasping your arm and making you wince in pain. This seems to pull him out of his trance of doubts, concern flashing across his tired expression. “What is it?” he asks, letting go of your arm. 

“Nothing,” you try to brush his concerns away and go to stroke his hair again to distract him, but he pushes your hand away, his jaw set hard. 

“Let me see,” his eyes fall upon your arm and you sigh, pulling up the sleeve of your shirt. 

“It’s nothing Stiles really,” you try to tell him, but his eyes are wide and staring at the skin on your arm. Dark bruises in the shape of his fingers, where he had gripped your arm too hard the night before in his sleep. You hadn’t been able to pull his hand off you, or wake him from the nightmare that made him hold on to you so hard. 

“Oh my god. I did that?” his voice breaks and Stiles pulls away from you suddenly, unable to bear being so close to you knowing he had hurt you. You crawl across the bed after him, pulling on his arm to make him look at you, but his eyes are squeezed shut and he’s breathing hard. 

“Stiles please, it’s not your fault. You were stuck in a nightmare, you didn’t mean it.”

“It doesn’t matter Y/N, I hurt you! I can’t stay the night any more, not until I figure this out.”

Stiles is shaking his head and already gathering his clothes from the chair that they lay on, stuffing them into his backpack and flying around your room to pick up all his stuff. You follow him around slowly, still healing from the crash but he’s not listening, and then he’s kissing you quickly and apologising, flying out the door. You sigh heavily and fall back on your bed, already feeling the loss from his empty side.

-

The next day you wait for Stiles to arrive as he always does every day once school hours are over, but he doesn’t arrive. You wait an anxious hour and when you can’t take it any more, pull out your phone to cal him. Since being out of the hospital he hasn’t missed a day of visiting you, and him not being here after the way he had left the night before worries you. Does he want to stay away from you completely now because of one incident? He can’t, not when things are finally sorting themselves between you. 

You ring him, and when he doesn’t answer you ring him again, and then message him asking where he is, is he okay? Each minute that goes by with no answer has you worrying even more until finally your phone beeps. 

_**|Stiles| On my way.** _

Short, no explanation. Now your anxiety is an uncomfortable tugging in your stomach, and a sweat that’s not from the heat. Adopting Stiles’ manner of anxiety you start pacing around the sitting room, waiting for his jeep to pull up to your house. When it does, you rush to the front door and pull it open, startling Stiles on your doorstep for a moment. He looks you up and down briefly, his brows knitting together in a concerned frown. 

“Y/N what’s going on? Are you okay?” he asks, placing a gentle hand on your back to steer you back into your own house. Once inside, he stands in front of you, a hand on your cheek to make you look up into his worried face. 

“I thought -” your voice breaks a moment, and there are tears welling in your arms. “After last night, and you didn’t come over today - I don’t know, I thought maybe -”

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” Stiles sighs, and he’s pulling you into a warm, comforting hug. “Scott and I went to see Deaton after school, to see if maybe he has answers about what’s going on. It’s not just me - something’s going on with Scott and Allison too.” Once you’ve calmed down and feeling pretty ridiculous for your breakdown, Stiles and you sit down and he tells you everything. Not just the nightmares, but the inability to read anything and never knowing if he’s really truly awake. About Scott nearly turning right in the middle of school for no reason, and Allison being haunted by a dead aunt and nearly killing Lydia.

“This is about that night, isn’t it?” you ask him and Stiles nods, knowing that you’re talking about the night the three of them had to die. 

“Deaton says that we’ve opened a door to our minds, and those doors are still open,” Stiles says thoughtfully, obviously still trying to wrap his hand around the explanation. 

“Don’t let them in,” you say suddenly, and Stiles frowns at you asking what you’re talking about. “That’s what you say in your sleep sometimes,” you explain to him. “What if 'them’ is these demons that you guys are talking about? Something is trying to get in your mind.” The explanation doesn’t do anything to settle Stiles, looking perhaps even more worried than before, but he’s nodding his head. 

“Apparently we have to figure out a way to close those doors.”

“How?” you ask, but Stiles just shrugs helplessly, indicating that he has no idea. You sigh heavily and move closer to him on the sofa the two of your are sat on, and he wraps his arms around you, pulling you into his body. 

“Well tomorrow is the weekend, and I think it’s about time that I left the house so how about we go out and do something? Something that doesn’t involve the supernatural and demons taking over minds?” you ask Stiles hopefully, turning your body to look up into his face, a bright smile on your face at the idea of a day spent with Stiles. His expression is not as bright though, he looks pained. 

“I’m sorry, I promised my dad that Scott and I would help him with this case. We have to go out to this guy’s house tomorrow.” Your face falls with your disappointment, causing Stiles to sigh, running his fingers through your hair. “I promise this is nothing to do with you, or us, or last night. It’s to do with my dad, and trying to get a win before he possibly loses his job.”

“What?” you snap up to look at him in surprise, seeing the worry etched into the frown lines in his face. “What happened?”

“Scott’s dad,” Stiles blanches. “He’s investigating my dad because of all his unsolved cases, and it’s hitting him pretty hard I think. He’s trying his best to solve this one case - maybe to save his job, or maybe for just one more win.”  
“Oh man, I’m sorry Stiles. Of course you have to go help him.” Stiles smiles and kisses your forehead, thanking you for being so understanding. 

-

You don’t spend much of your weekend with Stiles as he’s too busy helping Scott and his father on the search for a missing child from years ago, and Scott drags him out late in the night to go searching through the woods. Neither of them let you follow, being annoyingly reasonable when they point out that you’re still slow on your feet, and often when they go out at night there’s a need to run. Instead you wait sulkily, almost asleep when your phone buzzes with the message from Stiles explaining they found a coyote den, and he’ll see you on Monday morning for your return to school. 

When the Monday comes around you’re full of anxiety, worrying about everyone watching you at school and talking about you after missing a couple weeks of classes. The nervous energy of your mother definitely doesn’t help as she buzzes around you, asking if you have everything, do you need some painkillers, are you sure you want to go back, you can have another week off. It’s a huge relief when Stiles is knocking at the front door, but your mother looks at you with an expression like betrayal, saying that she was going to drive you to school. You almost feel bad for brushing her off and practically rushing out the door, but that guilt doesn’t last long when you’re sat in the passenger side of Stiles’ jeep, his warm hand on your leg as he drives. 

In History class you’re already sat in your seat whilst Stiles and Scott explain everything to Allison at the back of the room, having already had Stiles go into great detail to you on the ride to school. So far, there’s only been a little more attention on you by everyone you walk past in the hall, and a few well wishes; you’re starting to relax more with each class. Sitting in the seat in front of the new girl Kira, you have a front row seat to her embarrassment of trying to talk to Scott, and her father interrupting her with the research for the boy she likes. Despite feeling sorry for her, you’re hiding a smile behind your hand at the cuteness of it all, and the enamored smile on Scott’s face. When he sits down, he can feel you look at him, and you wiggle your eyebrows at him when he turns to look at you questioningly. He rolls his eyes at you, but there’s still a smile there at the corner of his lips. 

Mr Yukimura has Stiles go to the front of the class to speak and you think nothing of it, instead daydreaming as you lean on your hand and watch your boyfriend. The word still causes an automatic smile to creep onto your face. It’s admiring his face that makes you see his discomfort, his hand clutching the stand, eyes desperately flicking back and forth over the book in front of him. He can’t read, you suddenly remember. The telltale sign of being in a dream, but he’s not in one now, is he? This is happening here, in school. You’re here, so he’s not in a dream but he still can’t read? There’s sweat on his forehead, and Stiles is starting to look unsteady on his feet, his eyes having trouble focusing on anything in the room, and his breathing erratic. You and Scott both stand at the same time, rushing to Stiles’ side and insisting on taking him to the nurse. It’s not there that you go though, Scott is directing Stiles to the boy’s bathroom and you hesitate behind them for only a moment. Inside Stiles is clutching the sink, his breathing short and quick whilst Scott looks on. 

“This is just a dream, it’s just a dream." 

"It’s not,” Scott is saying, trying to convince Stiles that he’s awake and you go over to him, placing your hands on his shoulders in the hope of calming him. Stiles pushes you away, shaking his head and muttering about being in a dream still. You look back helplessly at Scott. “Okay uhm… what do you do? How do you tell if your awake and dreaming?”

“Fingers,” Stiles replies breathlessly, and together they count the ten fingers on Scott’s hand, while you watch not knowing how to help or what to do, not daring to interrupt. You know that if anyone can pull Stiles out of this it’s his best friend Scott, and for one selfish moment you wish it were you who could. 

Once they reach ten fingers, Stiles breathing starts to slow and he’s looking at Scott’s hand in confusion, in fear, as if he’s unable to believe it. But he does believe it, and he stumbles back to the wall, falling down into a sitting position. You rush over to kneel beside him, your hand on the back of his head to comfort him the same way you have been in the middle of the night, fingers going through his hair, your other hand on his knee. Stiles places his hand over yours, his own trembling, and then he’s grasping it and pulling your hand to his chest, hugging it to him. He lays his head on your shoulder, his breathing still hard, but calming. 

“What the hell is happening to me?” Stiles murmurs into your shoulder, then raising it to look at Scott who comes down in front of you both, already trying to comfort him and let him know that he’s going to be okay. “Am I?” Stiles asks and the question tugs at your heart, hurting you even more that you don’t know how to help him. 

“You will be okay,” you say quietly, and Stiles barely moves his head towards you to indicate he heard, still not looking at you. You take your hand from his and use it to turn his head towards you, the broken expression on his face killing you. “You’ll be okay Stiles, you have to be. We’ll figure it out,” you tell him, but he still looks unconvinced. There are tears in his eyes when he says that they can’t help anyone, and you almost cry along with him. 

Scott leaves you to comfort Stiles in private, using the excuse that he needs to go and get their bags from the classroom. In the loss of his ever positive presence there’s a silence between you and Stiles that feels like doom, and you can’t stand it, can’t stand that he thinks he’s losing his mind completely.  
“You’ll be okay,” you whisper again, unsure if you’re trying to comfort him or yourself. 

“I might not be,” Stiles says somberly, turning his body to look at you fully in the face. “This is a lot going on, and you’ve already been hurt after being dragged into this world by me. I’ll understand if this is getting too much for you Y/N, if - if being with me is getting too much.” Stiles lowers his gaze then, sighing quietly and you frown. 

“What? What are you talking about? We’ve been together a week and you’re already trying to break up with me?” you ask him angrily, and Stiles’ expression is hurt when he looks back up at you. 

“I’m saying it’s okay for you to break up with me. Of course I don’t want to, but look at what’s going on!” he waves a hand down the length of his body, and you put your hands on each side of his face, making him look at you. 

“Mieczyslaw Stilinski, I am not breaking up with you, you goddamn idiot. Whatever is happening we’re going to figure it out, and we’re going to do that together. I want to be with you,” you add the last part a little more quietly, and a smile finds its way to Stiles’ pale face. You lean down to him then and the two of you are kissing, your hands holding his face to yours, and his hands around your waist, holding on to you. 

That’s when someone bursts into the bathroom yelling about a coyote in the school. 

-

“No, you’re not coming with. It’s too stupid,” Stiles shakes his head. “We’re going in search of a freaking coyote through the woods, and you still can’t run. Not happening." 

"So I won’t run,” you throw your hands up in frustration. “I don’t have to come on the full adventure, maybe I’ll just stay in the jeep and wait for you guys, but there is no way I am sitting at home while you go off in the woods after a girl in a coyote’s body.” You lock Stiles in a stern gaze, and his expression is just as stubborn as you expect yours is right now, the two of you staring off, neither one wanting to give in. 

“She could help me,” Allison says, and you flick your head to where she’s standing. You realise that all your friends are watching the two of you, looking pretty awkward at being caught on the sidelines of your argument. “She can be my hands,” Allison shrugs, and Stiles looks at her as if she’s lost her mind. 

“You want her to handle the gun? Y/N?”

“Hey, why is that such a bad idea?” you ask him hotly, and he turns the same expression on to you, then folds his arm and quirks an eyebrow. 

“Have you ever held a gun? Know how to shoot one?” he asks you, and you open your mouth to argue back, but find that you don’t have a solid answer for him. 

“He has a fair point there,” Isaac says, and when you turn to him see that he’s talking more to Allison, quirking an eyebrow at her. You feel as if they’re communicating with just their expressions, and the rest of you aren’t in on the conversation. 

“Well I’m already out here, I’m not going home,” you tell him stubbornly. 

Stiles had left without you that day, telling you only that they were going in search of the coyote girl Malia, and not giving you any details. It had only taken a quick text to Isaac to get a lift from him and Allison, and Stiles’ face had been a picture when you stepped out of the car with them. You tried not to dwell on the fact he was driving Lydia around, as you told yourself you were completely over that jealousy. 

A gunshot in the distance interrupts the whole conversation and everyone turns in the direction of the sound. Two more going off has Scott jumping into action, throwing himself onto his bike and riding off down the path towards the gunfire. Isaac and Allison go off running after him, leaving you with Stiles and Lydia looking after them all. 

“Guess we’re going off plan,” you mumble, and Stiles glares at you for a moment before his phone rings, and he answers it to talk to his dad. He looks thoughtful as he talks whilst you and Lydia watch him, and then he’s hanging up suddenly. 

“It’s the doll,” he’s saying to nobody in particular, but then he’s frowning. “It’s the doll?” he repeats in a question, and you know you’re off the hook momentarily because he has a puzzle in front of him that he needs to solve. 

The three of you stay where you are, Lydia pacing as she and Stiles fire questions and comments between then focused on the doll that the coyote seems to be obsessed with. 

“Childhood memory?” you suggest. “Reminder of being human?”

“If that’s so then why hasn’t she turned back in eight years? If she remembers being a human?” Lydia asks, and you don’t have an answer for her. When they do figure it out, they start in the direction of the car crash but then Stiles stops and is looking back at you, indecision on his face. 

“We have to - we have to move quickly Y/N.” You frown at him, knowing that he’s suggesting you can’t follow them, but you don’t have the chance to argue your case when there’s a scream of pain in the distance. You think it might be Isaac, and the thought makes your stomach tighten with worry. Stiles is rushing now, pulling Lydia along with him. “Stay here so I know where you are!” Stiles calls back to you, and in your rage you set off after them. 

You can’t move nearly as quick as the two of them, even though all three of you are human. It only takes about ten minutes for you to feel a stitch in your side from the walking, and clambering over the little hills and dips in the uneven ground. You’ve mostly been lying in bed for weeks now, and the most you’ve moved is slowly going up and down your stairs.

You can mostly see them ahead of you, until their heads disappear down a sloping hill, which takes you some time to catch up. As you come up to the top where you can see them below, you freeze at the scene in front of you. Stiles is crouching on the ground beside Lydia’s legs, the redheaded stood frozen in place. You move a little closer as you try to figure out what is going on when Lydia is suddenly jumping back into the arms of your boyfriend, a loud snap crashing through the air. It’s then that you see the bear trap on the ground where Lydia had been stood, its teeth snapped shut. Your eyes fall upon the two figures, on Stiles with his arms protectively around Lydia, one comforting hand on her head, and her hands balled into fists with his shirt inside them, both of them breathing heavily. They turn to look at each other, faces just inches apart and your stomach drops right through your body and the ground, thinking that maybe they might. But they don’t kiss, turning away back to the bear trap that had come close to taking Lydia’s legs. 

They’re good friends, you remind yourself. Lydia has just nearly been hurt majorly and Stiles saved her, of course they’re hugging. Do they have to cling to each other like that, though? Do they need to still be hugging? You’re hit with the sight of them holding tightly onto one another, and a heavy lump develops in your throat, the doubts you thought you’d mostly worked through coming back in full force. 

You turn away from them, moving out of their line of sight if they were to turn around, the lump still blocking your throat and tears threatening to spill from your eyes. It’s nothing, you tell yourself. A comforting hug for a friend who almost lost a leg. You’re over-reacting. 

Not too far from your house, you decide. It’s within walking distance, and so you set off walking. It takes maybe ten minutes for you to start feeling ridiculous, and wondering if you should make a turn to the direction of Stiles’ jeep and wait for him there. You keep moving in the same direction, fighting through the winded feeling and the dull ache where you’d been impaled by a shard of glass. Another ten minutes of walking and you hear the roar of Scott, and it puts a small smile on your face knowing he’s worked through his problem and maybe that means they’re all going to be okay after all. 

The journey to your house takes probably ten times as long as it normally would, and you walk through the front door of your house drenched in sweat, feeling breathless, your stomach searing with pain. You shower first, standing long under the steaming water, tears falling down your face out of frustration. You feel ridiculous for crying, for reacting to a hug so dramatically, but the insecurities about Stiles’ feelings for Lydia are deep rooted. When you step out of the shower with raw, pink skin you wrap yourself in your towel and lie on your bed, pressing a button to bring your phone screen to life. 

_**|Stiles| Where are you? Where’d you go?** _

_**|Stiles| Did you go into the woods? Please tell me you didn’t.** _

_**|Stiles| I’m sorry I left but please answer me, let me know you’re okay** _

_**|Stiles| WHERE ARE YOU???** _

_**|Scott| You okay? Stiles is worried and about to start a search party through the woods.** _

_**|Lydia| Stiles is going out of his mind, where are you?** _

_**|Isaac| Followed your scent, told them you’re not lost in the woods. Everything okay?** _

_**|Stiles| Why did you leave without saying anything? Call me please** _

_**|Stiles| Answer the phone** _

_**|Allison| Lydia told me that Stiles left you with the cars. Want to talk about it?** _

 

You sigh, feeling bad for making them all worried about you, and a little amused at the idea of Isaac following your scent back to your house. You start typing out apology messages to your friends, trying to explain your sudden departure. 

_**|To Scott| Sorry I bailed, got left out in the woods and wasn’t going to hang out on my own so came home. Heard you roar though it was awesome! Did it work?** _

_**|To Isaac| Thanks for having my back. Was that you screaming early? Got annoyed and came home.** _

_**|To Allison| Thanks. Talk at school tomorrow?** _

_**|To Lydia| I’m okay, at home.** _

You stop over Stiles’ name on your phone, wondering what message to type out to him but knowing anything you say wouldn’t be enough for him. You can’t explain your feelings of hurt and annoyance through a text message, but you’re stubbornly still angry and don’t want to call him, either. The beeping of a message distracts you from your indecision. 

_**|Isaac| Bear trap! Hurt like hell, but almost healed already. Want to get food and talk about it?** _

_**|To Isaac| Like pizza? I’m ordering in.** _

_**|Isaac| On my way.** _

_**|Scott| I’m sorry you got left behind, Stiles was just worried about you getting hurt. Thanks! It worked, Sheriff and Stiles took her back to her dad.** _

 

You don’t type out a message in return to Scott, increasingly annoyed by Stiles’ need to stop you from getting hurt, and at the same time feeling guilty for being annoyed about it. After all, the last time he had tried to stop you from going for the same reasons you ended the night in the hospital. It’s a relief when Isaac arrives to stop you from going on a tirade of thoughts in your mind, sick of overthinking every little moment that has been happening. Isaac’s friendly smile and calm demeanour is a pleasant distraction as you both order food and sit at your kitchen table opposite one another. Isaac splays out his hands in front of him, quirking an eyebrow in your direction. 

“So tell me about it,” he says simply, and you blow out a breath and start speaking. 

“He left me!” you burst out to start. “Left me and told me to stay there with the cars while pulling Lydia along with him, because he wouldn’t dream of leaving her behind.” You try not to sound bitter or jealous, but are certain you sound both of those things. 

“Lydia doesn’t have a hole in her stomach,” Isaac argues reasonably, an amused expression on his face and you glare at him. 

“It’s not a hole anymore, the stitches are coming out in a few days,” you counter and he shrugs in response. “I didn’t listen to him anyway, I followed them but I was maybe a little slower,” Isaac gives you a look and you sigh, “okay, a lot slower. But I caught up to them at one point, because Lydia got stuck on a bear trap.”

“Yeah they told us about that, Stiles figured out how to get her out with her leg intact.” Isaac says whilst rubbing his own leg with a wince, likely remembering the moment he hadn’t been so lucky. 

You nod your head, “yeah but after - they were hugging. But more than hugging, they were just clinging to each other and not letting go, and all I could do was watch and -” you trail off, the memory of their embrace coming to your mind, eyes stinging with the threat of tears again. 

“She did just get out of a bear trap,” Isaac is frustratingly reasonable. “Anyone would need a hug from a friend after that.”

“Are you trying to ask for a hug?” you laugh, and Isaac chuckles, flashing you that quick grin that lights up his face. “Or did you get enough hugs from Allison?” you tease him, and that grin on his face widens for a moment, before looking embarrassed. “How is she? Did she manage to take the shot?” you ask more seriously. 

“She figured it out,” Isaac nods his head shortly. “Missed once, but now her hand is steady.”

“And Scott figured it out too, by the sounds of it,” you add, leaving the last one unspoken. 

“Maybe Stiles did too, seems like it was a win for all of them today,” Isaac tries to reassure you. 

The doorbell rings, making you jump. You hop out of your seat and rush to the door, returning to the kitchen with two delicious smelling, warm pizzas. For a while there’s silence as the two of you start eating, and then Isaac is looking at you again. 

“So, you’re still not over this jealousy with Lydia,” he sighs, trying to draw more out of you, and you sigh back at him. 

“I really thought I was, I mean Stiles and I are dating now but - just when I see the two of them together it’s like a niggle in the back of my mind.”

“Saying what?” he asks. 

“Like they look like they belong together,” you mutter miserably, and Isaac rolls his eyes at you. 

“Oh come on. You and Stiles are great together, you look great together, and I’ve not seen him this stupidly happy in a long time,” Isaac says. “Apart from the nightmare stuff,” he adds, managing to pull a smile from you. “Look Stiles is a good guy. A massive annoyance and I’m not saying I like the guy all that much, but he’s a good guy and you don’t have to worry about him being unfaithful to you. He adores you.”

His words makes your heart swell a little with pride and happiness, mind full of Stiles in the moments you both spend together alone. The way he looks at you, even when you’re not looking in his direction, the way he seems to always be touching you in some way as if he can’t bear to be apart from you, the way his lips feel on yours, the way he traces patterns on your skin when you’re lying in bed. A loud, frantic knocking interrupts your thoughts and your conversation, and you look at Isaac questioningly but he’s just shrugging his shoulders. You throw down the slice of pizza in your hand and get up, wiping the grease on the side of your jeans. The knocking continues until you’re pulling the door open, and Stiles nearly falls forward right into you, only catching his balance at the last moment. You both pause and stare at each other, but then Stiles is looking at you furiously. 

“What the hell Y/N? Why haven’t you answered my calls or texts? I’ve been going out of my damn mind with worry, and you’re here at home ignoring me?” he snaps at you, stepping around you to come into the house. You sigh quietly and follow behind him as he storms into the kitchen, his arms waving madly through the air as he continues his rant on being worried. There’s a silence when he gets to the door of the kitchen, Stiles stopping dead to look at Isaac sat at your kitchen table. “What the fuck?” he turns on you suddenly, his face twisted in anger. You look back at him in surprise, and when he realises you’re not going to answer, he continues. “You can’t answer me, your boyfriend, but you’ll invite Isaac goddamn Lahey around for dinner? What the fuck is going on Y/N? What is he doing here?” Stiles turns on Isaac then, stepping into the kitchen with a threat in his posture. “What are you doing here?” he yells at the werewolf, who watches him calmly. 

“It’s probably best that I go,” he says and stands up slowly, coming around the other side of the kitchen table towards the door and you. He places a hand on your shoulder and murmurs for you to call him if you need him. 

“Get your hands off her!” Stiles is shouting, storming over to the two of you and you step in front of him, knowing damn well that he wouldn’t be the one to win that fight. 

“Stiles, calm down,” you tell him as Isaac leaves the two of you alone in the house. 

“Calm down?” Stiles laughs humourlessly. “I’ve been worrying about you all night, no idea where you were or why you aren’t answering me and I find you having dinner with another guy!” His anger suddenly makes sense to you, realising that he’s jealous, and you feel like you could laugh at the situation. 

“Well you weren’t worried that much when you were leaving me to go off with Lydia!” you yell, pushing a little at his chest. 

“Of course I was worried, but there were gunshots going off and a were-coyote running around. The best place for you was with the cars, where you weren’t in danger. You weren’t even supposed to be there at all!” he’s no longer shouting, but there’s still anger and frustration lacing his words. 

“Right, because you don’t want your girlfriend with you but you’re more than happy to go off and pick up Lydia,” you say sarcastically, and Stiles sighs. 

“Is that what all this was about? Because it was Lydia I was with?”

“Because I saw you,” I snap, and Stiles frowns at you. “I saw the way you held her after the bear trap, and the way the two of you looked at each other, and all I could see was how perfect the two of you are together.” You’re not looking at him now, turned away as you admit what you had seen and the way you felt about it. You hear a sigh and after a moment Stiles’ hands are on your waist, his body pressing against your back, his head coming to rest his chin on your shoulder. 

“I promise you that was just me comforting her after she got stuck in that damned trap, she was shaking and scared out of her mind. What I told you in the hospital was the truth, and I don’t feel any differently than I did when I told you that you are the right girl.” Stiles kisses your shoulder, and you relax back into his hold, leaning your head down to rest against his, feeling even more stupid than before. 

“I’m sorry for scaring you, but it hurt me when you just left me there, and annoyed me a lot. Then I saw that and I just - I started over thinking, and my anxiety went through the roof,” you mumble, running your hands up and down over his arms wrapped around you. Stiles straightens up and you turn around with his arms still tightly holding to your waist. “I feel so stupid,” you sigh. 

“Don’t,” Stiles smiles, and plants a sweet, gentle kiss on your forehead. “I guess I understood how you feel when I walked in to Isaac sitting in your kitchen,” he says with a bright red flush on his cheeks. “That’s not - not something I have to worry about?” he asks you quietly, and you laugh, shaking your head. 

“Definitely not, he’s just been a friend to me. He’s definitely infatuated with Allison and I-” you slide your arms up and around his neck. “I am very infatuated with you.”

Stiles smirks and leans his head down to kiss you hard, his arms tightening around your waist to pull you into his body even closer. When you pull away the both of you are smiling, and you feel yourself melting. 

“I really am sorry,” you repeating, stretching up to kiss him quickly, and he nods. 

“I’m sorry too, I promise to never leave you like that again.”


	8. Keys

“What do you mean I can’t go to school?” you cry, staring at your mother in shock. 

“Y/N there’s a mass murderer on the loose, the same one who set off a bomb in a school, and you are still not able to run. Until he’s caught, I want you here at home.”

“I don’t think running does anybody any good if there’s a bomb!” you snap in your frustration, and your mum doesn’t reply, only gives you a harsh look. “I can power walk, I’m getting pretty good at it,“ you make an attempt at humour, but her lips don’t even twitch at the hint of a smile. 

"It’s not negotiable. I’m not working today, and you’re staying here at home with me. Hopefully they’ll find him today and this will all be over.”

“And if it’s not?“ you ask. “You can’t keep me locked up here forever.”

“Maybe just until you’re strong enough to run again,” she raises an amused eyebrow at you, but you just glare at her for her own attempt at humour. 

Sighing in defeat, you throw your backpack back down and turn to climb up the stairs to your room, already keying a message to Stiles to let him know you won’t be there today. 

_|Y/N| Mum won’t let me go to school today because I can’t outrun a murderer._

_|Stiles| Well I guess she does have a point? We’re going to be doing a search, see if the guys can sniff him out. Promise to keep you updated._

_|Y/N| This sucks I always get left out_

_|Stiles| I’m sorry baby, I’ll message you when I have any news_

With a sigh, you flop down on your bed and put your phone down on your bedside table, pulling your laptop towards you. Accepting your fate to a day at home, you pull up Netflix. 

Stiles keeps his promise to keep you in the loop, sending you multiple messages throughout the day. They can’t find any evidence of the killer Barrow being in the school, everyone’s getting frustrated, them being worried about him trying to blow up the school. Stiles messages you about pulling the fire alarm to get everyone out of school because he is, in his words, a bit of a genius. He then messages you about getting into trouble for pulling said fire alarm, and asks if you’re able to leave the house to go to his for some investigation work. It takes some convincing with your mum to let you out of the house, but you make her believe that you need to go to Stiles’ to catch up on the classes that she made you miss that day. 

Stiles pulls up to your house, and you do your best to keep your expression straight when you spot the flash of red hair in his passenger seat. You have to mentally scold yourself for your reaction to her being in the car, but it still rubs you the wrong way, it still makes your stomach tighten. The fact that they always seem to be drawn together, right in front of your face. It’s not that you don’t trust your boyfriend or think he’s going to actively try to cheat on you with Lydia, but there’s something there between them, some kind of connection that only you seem to be noticing. 

Pushing the bitterness from your expression and the thoughts from your mind, you plaster a smile on your face and bounce out of the house towards his jeep, where Lydia is already jumping out to clamber into the back seat and let you sit besides Stiles. You flash her a grateful smile, and enjoy the sweet kiss that Stiles plants on your lips when you get inside. During the drive to his house, Stiles reaches over to take your hand in his and holds it during the entire ride while they fill you in on the events at school. It settles a warmth in your body, suddenly feeling foolish at your jealousy. 

The night is frustrating for all involved as the three of you can’t seem to figure out any answers, but it seems more frustrating for Lydia. She had seemed so certain about Barrow being at the school, and Stiles keeps reassuring her about his faith in her, occasionally looking to you to back him up. 

"Hey Lydia, you have been right every time something like this has happened so don’t start doubting yourself now,” Stiles is saying and you look back from where you’re staring at Stiles’ board with your mouth open, ready to agree with him being right but stop short. He’s knelt in front of where she lies so comfortably on his bed, the red string twisted nervously around her finger. He’s reaching out to unravel it from her as he talks softly, and her gaze is fixed on him as if there’s nothing else in the world she could possibly be looking at. You turn your eyes away, a hard lump in your throat as the feelings of comfort from the car ride earlier crumble away to this new evidence of their strong connection. The back and forth between your insecurities and your faith in your relationship is really starting to give you some kind of mental whiplash. Your thoughts of misery are interrupted by an idea or some kind of revelation forming in Stiles’ mind, and he’s telling Lydia to get up and the both of you to come with him, suddenly needing to go to the school. Is he making good on his promise to search all night to prove a point to Lydia? 

It turns out his sudden urgency has come from a revelation that he doesn’t share with either you or Lydia, but he drags you both to the chemistry lab and its unlocked storage cupboard for chemicals. It’s there you all realise that Lydia has been right all day, but the wolves couldn’t smell him because he was being masked by the chemicals, and it’s in the classroom that you all make the chilling discovery of who the next target is; Kira. For a moment you pause at the chalkboard, staring at the numbers that are a code for a name. Something seems so familiar, and there’s a thought there dancing in your mind that you struggle to grasp. 

“Y/N come on, we gotta go,” Stiles’ voice pulls you away from whatever it is you’re mind is trying to figure out, and you follow behind him back to the jeep. The rest of the night passes by in a pretty quick blur, finding knocked out Scott outside Kira’s house, Lydia screaming and figuring out where to go to find Barrow and Kira, and being forced to sit out in the jeep with Lydia as Stiles’ rushes in with his one bat. 

“I don’t think I’ve said it but I’m happy for you and Stiles, you two look good together,” Lydia breaks what feels like an eternity of awkward silence. 

“Uh - thanks. He makes me very happy,” you reply with a warm smile. You want to tell her that you know she kissed him, but keep your mouth closed because there would be no point and it would only highlight your jealousy and insecurity. Plus you weren’t dating Stiles when that happened, nobody knew about the two of you meeting in secret, so you don’t really have a right to be mad with her about it. Mad is what you feel though, you realise. Not fully angry with her decision to kiss Stiles, but still it annoys you despite the logical reasoning of your brain telling you that she didn’t really do anything wrong. 

“I’m sorry,” you blurt, making Lydia frown at you in confusion. “Things have been pretty weird between us two for a while now, and that’s my fault and my insecurities over - well, because I know how much Stiles liked you before.” The words come out in a tumble and when you look back at Lydia, she looks uncomfortable to be in this conversation, to have the truth of Stiles’ feelings laid out in front of her. 

“I hope you know that nothing would ever happen between Stiles and I, and not just because I don’t feel about him that way, but because I consider you a friend too, Y/N. I wouldn’t do that to you.” There’s a feeling of relief that washes through you at her words, and perhaps you needed verbal confirmation that she didn’t have those feelings about Stiles, and there was no budding relationship between the two of them. They’re just close friends. 

\- 

The next day at school you can see the long looks that Scott is giving Kira, obviously dying to talk to her, and the subtle shaking of the head from Stiles, trying to set him against the idea. Stiles is concerned about Barrow’s reasoning for trying to kill her, and keeps telling you both that she might be some Supernatural murdering machine, no matter how much you protest and point out she’s possibly the sweetest girl you’ve ever met. Not to mention Scott’s obvious crush on her, which you tease him about relentlessly through the day. 

“Are you going to be able to come to Danny’s black light party with us tonight?” Scott asks as he and Stiles’ sit down at the lunch table with you. 

“As long as that’s not what my mum thinks it’s going to be,” you answer with a grin.

“Great,” he answers with his own grin. “Before that though, I need your help Stiles and you might not like it.” Stiles looks up from his food in surprise, and then hits his best friend with a suspicious glare. 

“Why?” he asks slowly. 

“I need to get to the evidence at the precinct,” Scott says casually before taking a bite of his sandwich. Your mouth drops open and Stiles jerks his body in surprise. 

“What? Are you freaking kidding me? Why would you need to do that?” he hisses at the boy sat opposite you both. 

“I know it’s a big ask, especially everything that’s going on with your dad-”

“Because of your dad,” Stiles mutters, and you hit him on the arm as Scott shifts uncomfortably, giving him a warning look to remind him those events aren’t Scott’s fault. Stiles pulls a face that says he knows, but he also can’t seem to stop himself. 

“It’s - it’s for Kira. We need to get to her phone.”

“Oh, ‘we’ now?” you ask teasingly, making Scott glare at you. 

“You want me to help you do something very illegal, when my dad’s job is hanging on the line, because she misses her phone?” Stiles asks, his eyes narrowed at Scott. 

“No, no, it’s not that. She just need to … delete some pictures, before they go through her phone,” Scott stutters through his sentence, and now both you and Stiles are looking at him suspiciously. “She has naked pictures on there that she doesn’t want anyone to see, okay?” Scott snaps, avoiding looking up at you both.

You snort in laughter, holding your hand up to your mouth to stop from making fun of an obviously very uncomfortable Scott, whose face has turned a bright red. Stiles just looks stunned for a moment, and then he sighs. 

“Fine, I’ll help. We’ll go tonight before the party, but you seriously better not get caught, and if you do I did not help you. Got it?”

“Yep, got it.”

“Any idea who she was taking the pictures for?” you ask with a smirk, and Scott snaps his head to fix you with a hard glare. 

“Shut up.”

“Oh hey,” Stiles turns to you after some silent eating. “I meant to ask - did you add a key to my ring of keys?”

“A key?” you frown. “Why would I give you a key without telling you?” you laugh off his question, and Stiles nods with a smile, saying nothing more on the subject. 

Later that night you wait for what seems like an age, but finally Stiles’ jeep pulls up in front of your house for the party. You told your mother that you were going on a Halloween double date with Scott and Kira, and your story has more merit when you see the two of them sitting in the back of his jeep. 

“Hey guys, how did the heist go?” you ask merrily ask you clamber inside, and the boys cast awkward glances at Kira. 

“You knew about that too?” she asks slowly, her eyes turning on Scott. 

“Oh yeah - well, only part of it. Stiles just told me he was helping you guys do something not so legal, no details though,” you rush to cover up your blunder, not wanting her to be embarrassed about the kind of pictures she’d gone to delete. She nods quietly at your answer, a smile playing on her lips. 

“Well, apparently Kira got a taste for the dangerous life, she had fun.” Stiles laughs, turning to raise an eyebrow at you. 

“We all need hobbies,” you joke, causing some laughter from all of them. 

“Is this party going to be a big one?” Kira asks the car, sounding almost nervous.   
“I don’t think so,” Scott tries to reassure her, and you tut at his lie. 

“Danny’s parties are usually pretty big but don’t worry, we’ll all stick together.” You turn in your seat to smile at her reassuringly, and from her face it looks like it works. 

Even you weren’t expecting just how big the party was, and you’re pretty certain if Derek found out how his loft was being used there’d be some words - and punches. The four of you push through the crowd trying to find anyone that you know, but Stiles is talking about some key again to Scott, who asks if they should go to figure out this problem. Just as he asks some girl with bright hair and paint all over bounces up to your group, planting a firm kiss on Stiles’ cheek and wishing you all a happy halloween. Stiles looks at a loss for words, staring after the girl who disappears into the crowd, a frown settling on his face when he looks to you. 

“Okay nope,” you wipe furiously at the mark on his cheek and he looks like he’s going to apologise or ramble about not knowing her, or something. You grab his hand, “we’re going to get our own paints, and maybe some drinks, and we’re definitely going to dance,” You say firmly, and a grin creeps onto his face. The both of you turn to Scott and Kira with a question on your lips, but Scott just smiles and waves a hand at you both to let you go. 

Pulling Stiles back through the crowd your hand is clasped firmly with his, but you don’t make it to the painting station before Stiles is tugging on your hand to turn you to him. You look at him questioningly but don’t get the chance to ask him if anything is wrong, because his free hand comes up to your cheek and he leans down to kiss you. It’s not a sweet kiss, but a hot and needy make out. His hand moves from your cheek to your waist, pulling you firm against his body, and the two of you are forced to move with the bodies around you to the thumping music. It feels so good to be kissed like this, after all the creeping doubts that you’ve been feeling lately, and Stiles still refusing to stay the night. When the two of you break the kiss you’re feeling a little breathless, and you both have a grin on your lips. 

“I was looking forward to painting your body, but this is definitely better.” You tell him with a smirk, and Stiles laughs but shakes his head. 

“Oh no, no way am I getting my shirt off. I wouldn’t mind a little private painting of your body though,” he says with a sly smile, his hand travelling down your waist to cup and squeeze your ass instead. In response, you pull him down for a hungry, fiery kiss with parted lips, your tongue dancing with Stiles’. You kiss him passionately with thoughts of leaving the party very early, and kiss him until you feel like if you continue you’re going to drag him into a quiet corner. Keeping your arms wrapped around his neck and his hands firmly around your waist the two of you move along with the beat of the deafening music and the crowd around you, a mischievous smile on Stiles’ face. You dance locked together until a warm body falls into the both of you, the person stumbling forward and saying something that looks like an apology. You recognise her as the girl who left her lips on Stiles’ cheek, and she plasters a grin on her face. Before you can say anything, or push her away and tell her to back off, she’s leaning forward and pressing her lips to your cheek. 

“Hey, do you guys want drinks?” she shouts over the music, and you’re too surprised for a moment to reply. 

“Sure!” Stiles shouts back, his hand on your back pushing you forward. When you turn to look at him, there’s a smirk on his lips and he wiggles his eyebrows at you suggestively. Laughing in surprise, you hit him gently on the chest, knowing where his filthy mind has wandered to. As you both make your way through the dancing crowd of people, you amble past two figures holding hands and dancing very closely together. Isaac looks up just in time for his gaze to meet yours, and both your faces break out into a grin at the sight of him dancing with Allison, and you make a mental note to call him another time to grill him about updates. 

The girl whose name is Caitlyn joins you and Stiles in a corner, cradling three beers in her arms, asking for a bottle opener when she passes them around. Stiles reaches into his pocket to pull out his ring of keys, and Caitlyn’s eyes light up whens he plucks them from his hand. 

“Your key has phosphors on it,” she claims, pointing out the key with a glowing green mark on it. 

“What are those?” you ask, reaching out to cup Stiles’ hand and look at the key in question. She explains about it making things glow, and the things it could be in, and all the while Stiles is frowning down at the key on his ring, as if he’s never seen it before. Wasn’t he asking about a key earlier? 

“How would I get phosphors on my key?” he asks the question more to himself than anyone else. 

“Have you been handling chemicals?” she asks him and he shakes his head subtly. 

“No I don’t think I…” he starts but doesn’t finish the sentence, and you can almost see the thoughts processing in his mind right before you, something clicking into place that didn’t make sense before. You sigh a little, and turn to the confused looking girl. 

“I think we’re about to leave,” you say to her and she shrugs with a bright smile on her face. Stiles jumps up to his feet as a lightbulb goes off in his mind, and his sudden movement startles you but you aren’t all that surprised. 

“I’m sorry, I just thought of something and I need to-”

“I know Stiles, let’s go,” you laugh, pulling yourself up to your feet. Stiles nods but then stops, looking at you guiltily. 

“You can stay here with everyone, it’s just one little thing I need to check out. I’ll come back soon.” 

Amused, you shake your head and reach out to take his hand, “I don’t want to be here if it’s not with you.”

Stiles can’t help the proud smile that stretches his lips and he leans down to lock you in a quick, firm kiss before pulling you back through the throng of people towards the exit. On the way out you try to look around the sea of faces to spot Scott and Kira, wanting to explain your exit as you feel guilty for not sticking with them like you promised her. Unfortunately you don’t see them, and decide you’ll say sorry and make it up to her at a later time.

Stiles is jittery during the car ride, and when you ask him what’s going on and where he needs to go Stiles only tells you the school because he needs to check something, a theory, something he’s trying to make sense of. You don’t push him too hard on giving you answers, knowing they’ll be revealed when he puts all the pieces together. 

The chemistry lab again. Stiles’ keys jingle through the quiet of the night as he walks quickly through the school with you struggling to keep up. In the room you see the hesitation in Stiles, perhaps because whatever he’s figured out he doesn’t want to be right. Then he’s reaching out with the keys and you think he’s got the one they’d just been talking about, and he’s putting it in the lock of the cupboard Barrow had hidden in. The click of the lock when he turns the key is almost deafening in the quiet between you both, and Stiles looks up at you with an expression that you can’t read. His eyes move over your face and to something behind you, and you can only stand and watch as Stiles moves over to the whiteboard where Kira’s name is still written next to the numbers. 

With shaking hands, Stiles picks up a piece of chalk and next to the numbers already there, he scribbles his own. A chill crawls over your skin as it clicks in your own mind what had bothered you the night before about the numbers on the chalkboard. You had recognised the writing. 

“It was me,” Stiles whispers in disbelief, turning to look at you and the scared look in his face hurts and worries you. 

\- 

“Hey Scott, have you seen Stiles?” you catch your friend in the halls, wondering if Stiles had managed to talk to him yet about the night before. 

“Uh yeah,” Scott frowns, his expression full of concern. “He took me to the chemistry storage earlier but - I don’t know, something was off about him.”

“What? Did he show you the key? The writing?” you ask and Scott looks up at you now. 

“Did you see it? Because neither of them were there when he took me today and I think he freaked out, he said he had to go.”

“What?” you ask, pulling out your phone to call Stiles’ number. Scott is trying to ask you questions about the key and what Stiles was saying but you can’t concentrate on him and start walking away, begging Stiles to pick up the phone. He finally does, and you can hear the shake in his voice. 

“Hey Y/N, I’m a bit busy right-” he starts to say but is cut off by the wailing sound of an ambulance, and then a voice that sounds a lot like Scott’s mum. You’re already walking out of the school grounds when Stiles apologises and says he has to go, and you call a cab to take you to the hospital where you’re pretty certain he is. 

The quick ride there has you starting to feel panicked, and sick with worry at what is going on with Stiles. Did he get hurt? Is there something more going on? You almost run in through the doors, eyes searching wildly for someone you can ask about him when you spot the back of his head. He’s walking down the hall with the familiar figure of Melissa Mccall, her hand soothing on his back as she leads him into a room. You pace quickly down after them and burst into the room, both their heads snapping up at the intrusion. 

“Y/N what are you doing here?” Stiles looks at you with his eyes wide in surprise, half standing up from where he’s sitting on the bed. 

“Making sure you’re okay, of course,” you sigh as you cross the room towards him, looking for any signs of injuries but really you think you already know what this is about, and it’s nothing physical. 

“Y/N, maybe you should wait outside - or go back to school. This is a private-”  
“No,” Stiles sighs, his hand already clasping yours. “She can stay, I want her to stay.” His thumb rubs against the skin on your hand, and you’re pretty certain it’s more to comfort himself rather than you. Melissa hesitates as she looks between the both of you, but then nods silently and puts a pen to paper on some kind of chart, telling Stiles to tell her the symptoms he’s worried about. 

Stiles takes a shaky breath. “Blackouts, but not for long. Sleep walking, which I used to do a lot as a kid. Also having some really bad anxiety,” his knee starts to jolt in a quick rhythm and Melissa turns to him with a frown. 

“Panic attacks?” she asks him, and Stiles nods quickly. You stroke the skin of his hand with your thumb, trying to be reassuring. 

“Oh, and I temporarily lose the ability to read but that might have more to do with this giant magic tree and a whole human sacrifice thing,” he jokes and it makes Melissa laugh as she continues writing. 

“How many hours of sleep are you getting?”

“Eight,” Stiles replies much to your surprise. 

“A night?”

“In the last three days.” Your head snaps up to look at Stiles just as Melissa’s turns quickly to him as well, both of you fixing him with a worried stare. Stiles avoids looking at either of you and stares down at his free hand, mouthing as it looks like he’s counting on the fingers. “Yeah, definitely eight,” he confirms. 

Melissa has stopped writing and turned away to get something that you don’t see whilst still asking him questions about irritability and his focus. You can’t stop looking at the side of Stiles’ face, his eyes occasionally flickering over to where you sit but never stopping on you. Obviously he hasn’t been meaning to tell you any of this, keeping from you how bad his nights are now that you don’t spend them together. You suddenly feel like the worst person for not noticing how much worse things had gotten for him, how the dark circles under his eyes are more like permanent bruises, his lips are dry and cracked, and his skin is starting to look lifeless. 

“Do you know what this is?” Stiles asks her quietly and she’s nodding her head, coming over now with a syringe in her hand. When Stiles asks what it is she asks if he trusts her, and of course he makes a joke. Still, he doesn’t resist when she lifts the sleeve of his shirt and swabs the skin, and she injects him with it before telling him it’s a sedative. 

“Why did you give me a sedative?” he asks her in surprise, and she puts her hands on his shoulders to adjust him on the bed. You jump up from beside Stiles, dropping his hand from yours. 

“You Stiles are one profoundly sleep deprived young man. Lie down,” Melissa says calmly as she maneuvers him onto the bed, and you can only watch from the side. 

“Okay, how long’s it take-” Stiles starts, but he’s falling back onto the pillows. “Oh not long at all,” you can’t help but smile as you watch her tuck him under the blanket, and Stiles is reaching out for your hand. You step forward and lace your fingers with his shaking ones, glancing up at Melissa who stands on the other side. Stiles takes her hand too before she can pull away, and she brushes the hair away from his forehead as she whispers for him to get some rest. 

“Thanks mom,” he says ever so quietly, and you hear the breath catch in Melissa’s throat. Two simple words that tear you up inside and shatter your heart, tears springing to your eyes as you take in the sight of Stiles in his bed, pale skin and bruises under his eyes, and think of all he’s been through. You can see the same going through Melissa’s mind but think it stings her a little more, having known Stiles longer and being a mother figure to him throughout the years. Her eyes lock with yours over the sleeping form of Stiles, and she smiles in embarrassment. 

“How long will he be out?” you ask her quietly, and she glances down at him quickly once more. 

“Hard to say, but likely a few hours. You should get back to school,” she raises her eyebrows but you’re shaking your head. 

“No, I think I’ll sit with him for a while,” you murmur as you caress your thumb across his cheek. Surprisingly, you don’t get an argument, only a silent nod of Melissa’s head in response. She starts to walk out of the room but stops, turning back to you. 

“I think he was glad you showed up for him,” she tells you thoughtfully. “You two are good together, and I know that he likes you very much.” 

“Thanks,” you smile at Melissa and finally she leaves, grabbing the chart she’d been writing on on her way out. 

Stiles fingers had loosened their grip on yours when he fell under the sedative, so that you’re able to slide your hand out in order to pull a chair up close to his bed. Lowering yourself into the chair you lean forward to be closer to the sleeping form of Stiles, and for a while you just watch him sleep, taking comfort in the quiet breathing of a peaceful sleep. You move slowly and as quiet as possible to lean forward and run your fingers through his hair, even though you know with the sedative he’s not likely to wake up. You sit and watch him, taking in all of the features on his face that you enjoy so much, and worrying about the telltale signs of his lack of sleep. You chew on your lower lip as you fight against the overwhelming emotions of concern and anxiety at seeing him here lying in a hospital bed after coming to seek help. 

The day passed by in a slow crawl as you spend the day at Stiles’ side, only leaving for a short while in search of something to drink and eat. Thankfully you have some books downloaded on your phone for when you can’t concentrate on studying for classes any longer. Scott calls you, which makes you jump for your ringing phone, cursing yourself for not turning the ringer off, or the whole thing off altogether. The boy on the line rambles on about some ninja demons taking down and leaving marks on all your friends, and thinking they might also be after Kira. Telling him you’ll call him if anything happens at the hospital but you’re not leaving Stiles alone, especially if there’s ninjas on the loose. You want to be there when he wakes. Scott sounds like he wants to argue with you, but ultimately gives in and promises to send you updates on what happens and tells you to stay safe. 

You fall asleep some time after the sky darkens.


End file.
